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THE PILGRIMS' WAY 

FROM WINCHESTER TO CANTERBURY 




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THE PILGRIMS' WAY 

FROM WINCHESTER 
TO CANTERBURY 

BY JULIA CARTWRIGHT 




ILLUSTRATED BY 
A. H. HALLAM MURRAY 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1911 



/t" 



" From every shire's ende 
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, 
The holy blissful martyr for to seeke, 
That them hath holpen when that they were sicke.' 



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All Rights Reserved 




•Hi ^'Jl 'J 






Tnc AfiproacVi Co Wi 



7^1 



THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH 



PREFACE 



This account of the Way trodden by the pilgrims 
of the Middle Ages through the South of Eng- 
land to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury 
originally appeared in iho. Art Jotcrnal iov 1892, 
with illustrations by Mr. A. Quinton. It was 
published in the following year as a separate 
volume, and reprinted in 1895 and 1901. Now 
by the courtesy of Messrs. Virtue's representa- 
tives, and in response to a continued demand, it 
appears again in a new and revised form, with 



VI PREFACE 

the additional attraction of illustrations from 
original drawings by Mr. Hallam Murray. 

During the twenty years which have elapsed 
since these pages were first written, a whole 
literature has grown up round the Pilgrims' 
Way. Not only have scholarly papers on separate 
sections of the road appeared in the Journals of 
Archaeological Societies, but several valuable 
works on the subject have been issued by writers 
of authority. Mr. H. Snowden-Ward has written 
a book on "The Canterbury Pilgrimages," in 
Messrs. A. & C. Black's Pilgrimage Series, in 
which he deals at length with the life and death, 
the cult and miracles of St. Thomas, and the 
different routes taken by pilgrims to his shrine. 
Mr. Palmer has described a considerable portion 
of the Way in his treatise on " Three Surrey 
Churches," and only last autumn Mr. Elliston- 
Erwood published an excellent little guide-book 
called " The Pilgrims' Road," for the use of 
cyclists and pedestrians, in Messrs. Warne's 
Homeland Pocket-book Series. But the most 
thorough and systematic attempt to reconstruct 



PREFACE Vll 

the route taken by pilgrims from Winchester to 
Canterbury has been made by Mr. Belloc in his 
admirable work, " The Old Road." The author 
himself walked along the ancient track, and suc- 
ceeded in filling up many gaps where the road 
had been lost, and in recovering almost the whole 
of the Way, "yard by yard from the capital of 
Hampshire to the capital of Kent." This inti- 
mate knowledge of the road and its characteristics 
have led him to make several alterations in the 
line of the Way marked on the Ordnance Map, 
which had hitherto served as the basis of most 
descriptions. But as Mr. Belloc himself recog- 
nises, it is clear that pilgrims often left the 
original road to visit churches and shrines in 
the neighbourhood. Thus, in several places, new 
tracks sprang up along the downs to which local 
tradition has given the name of the Pilgrims' Way, 
and which it is not always easy to distinguish 
from the main road. Like Bunyan's pilgrims, 
when they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty, 
'* one turned to the left hand, and the other to the 
right, but the narrow way lay right up the hill." 



Vlll PREFACE 

In this edition of my book some obvious 
errors have been corrected, and certain doubtful 
points have been cleared up with the help of 
experience gained by other workers in the same 
field. But, as a rule, my object has been not 
so much to draw attention to the actual road 
as to describe the antiquities and objects of 
interest which arrest the traveller's notice on his 
journey. From whatever side we approach it, 
the subject is a fascinating one. All of these 
different studies, varied in aims and scope as 
they may be, bear witness to the perennial in- 
terest which the Pilgrims' Way inspires. The 
beauty of the country through which the old 
road runs, its historic associations and famous 
memories, the ancient churches and houses which 
lie on its course, will always attract those who 
love and reverence the past, and will lead many 
to follow in the footsteps of the mediaeval 
pilgrims along the Way to Canterbur}^ 

Julia Cartwright. 

OCKHAM, Nov. I, 191 1. 




^^i^p 






..^.-r^^rT' 



..'^0''" '"••;">'■■. 



THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

1. THE pilgrims' WAY 



PAGE 
I 



II. WINCHESTER TO ALTON 



20 



in. ALTON TO COMPTON 



IV. COMPTON TO SHALFORD 



44 
63 



V. SHALFORD TO ALBURY 



VI. SHERE TO REIGATE 



75 
^1 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VII. REIGATE TO CHEVENING .... IO3 

VIII. OXFORD TO WROTHAM . . . . -125 

IX. WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE . . - '^ 37 

X. HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM . . -153 

XI. CHARING TO GODMERSHAM . . . . 167 

XII. CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN . . . . 182 

XIII. HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY . . -193 

XIV. THE martyr's SHRINE ..... 203 

INDEX 217 

NOTE ON THE BINDING 

The " Canterbury Bell " and the Badges, represented on the cover 
of the book, were worn by the Pilgrims on their return from 
the Shrine of St. Thomas. The Badges were made of lead. 




NEAR WROTHAM WATER. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



COLOURED PLATES 



THE NORMAN TOWER AND SOUTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER 

CATHEDRAL ........ Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
32 



WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH 

CHAWTON HOUSE 

THE MOTE, IGHTHAM 

AYLESFORD BRIDGE 

COTTAGE AT BOARLEY, NEAR BOXLEY . 

CHARING 

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST 

xi 



50 
136 
146 

170 
192 



Xll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



HALF-TONES 

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR 
king's gate, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE 

LOSELEY 

THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD . 

OLD YEWS AND OAK IN EASTWELL PARK 

THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY . 

MERCERY LANE, CANTERBURY 

THE MARTYRDOM, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 

LINE BLOCKS 

ON " THE WAY " BETWEEN KEMSING AND OTFORD 

THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH 
THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN 
NEAR WROTHAM WATER 
ST. CROSS AND ST. KATHERINE's HILL 

doorway in canterbury cloisters through 
passed on his way to vespers 

st. cross from the meadows • 

the entrance to st. cross hospital 

BOX HILL 

THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH . 
ROOF OF STRANGERS' HALL, WINCHESTER . 
THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER . 
ON THE RIVER ITCHEN, WINCHESTER . 



FACING PAGE 

28 
67 
72 
176- 
194 ' 
199 
205 



Title-page 

PACE 
V 

ix 
xi 

I 



WHICH BECKET 



8 

13 
15 
18 

20 
21 

23 

27 



A 



\ 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XUl 



THATCHED COTTAGE, MARTYR WORTHY 
CHILLAND FARM, NEAR ITCHEN ABBAS 
NEW ALRESFORD 
THE hog's back 

JANE Austen's house, chawton 
farnham castle 

crooksbury from newlands corner 
compton village 

COMPTON church 

ST. KATHERINE's, GUILDFORD 

ST. Martha's chapel 

THE hog's back 

ST. Martha's from the hog's back 
ST. Martha's from chilworth 
albury old church . 

THE mill, GOMSHALL . 

shere 

crossways farm, near wotton 

WOTTON 

box hill and DORKING CHURCH SPIRE 

THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING 

BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING 

ON " THE WAY " ABOVE BETCHWORTH 

WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON 

REIGATE COMMON 



WEST 



FAGB 

34 
36 
40 
44 
47 
53 
55 
63 

65 

70 

71 

73 

75 
81 

85 
87 
89 
91 
93 
95 
96 

97 
100 
103 

105 



XIV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



LOOKING EAST FROM GATTON PARK 

GATTON TOWN HALL . 

MERSTHAM CHURCH . 

THE WHITE HART, GODSTONE 

OLD HOUSE IN OXTED. 

OXTED CHURCH .... 

BRASTED 

CHEVENING CHURCH . 

OTFORD CHURCH . . 

THE PORCH, KEMSING CHURCH . 

WROTHAM CHURCH 

WROTHAM, LOOKING SOUTH 

THE BULL, WROTHAM . 

TROTTESCLIFFE . . . ^ 

FORD PLACE, NEAR WROTHAM . 

THE FRIARY, AYLESFORD 

KITS COTY HOUSE 

LOOKING WEST FROM ABOVE BOXLEY 

HOLLINGBOURNE HOUSE 

MARKET-PLACE, LENHAM 

IN CHARING VILLAGE . 

THE PALACE, WROTHAM 

CHILHAM 

ON THE VILLAGE GREEN, CHARTHAM 

ST. NICHOLAS', HARBLEDOWN 

SITE OF THE SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS, 



ABBEY 



CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 







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SrCro5j«S?Kar^ 



Hill m' 4^". ■•■., ' '" -^ ' " 



ST. CROSS AND ST. KATHERINE's HILL. 



CHAPTER I 



THE PILGRIMS WAY 



Three hundred and seventy years have passed 
since the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury was 
swept away, and the martyr's ashes were scattered 
to the winds. . The age of pilgrimages has gone 
by, the conditions of life have changed, and the 
influences which drew such vast multitudes of 
men and women to worship at the murdered 
Archbishop's tomb have long ago ceased to work 
on the popular mind. No longer does the merry 



2 THE PILGRIMS WAY 

cavalcade of Chaucer's lay ride forth in the fresh- 
ness of the spring morning, knight and merchant, 
scholar and lawyer. Prioress and Wife of Bath, 
yeoman and priest and friars, a motley company 
from all parts of the realm, "ready to wenden on 
their pilgrimage with full devout courage " to 
Canterbury. The days of pilgrimages are over, 
their fashion has passed away, but still some part 
of the route which the travellers took can be 
traced, and the road they trod still bears the 
name of the Pilgrims' Way. Over the Surrey 
hills and through her stately parks the dark yews 
which lined the path may yet be seen. By many 
a quiet Kentish homestead the grassy track still 
winds its way along the lonely hill-side overlook- 
ing the blue Weald, and, if you ask its name, the 
labourer who guides the plough, or the waggoner 
driving his team, will tell you that it is the Pil- 
grims' Road to Canterbury. So the old name 
lives, and the memory of that famous pilgrimage 
which Chaucer sang has not yet died out of the 
people's heart. And although strangers journey 
no longer from afar to the martyr's shrine, it is 
still a pleasant thing to ride out on a spring or 



THREE ROUTES 3 

summer morning and follow the Pilgrims' Way. 
For the scenes through which it leads are fair, 
and the memories that it wakes belong to the 
noblest pages of England's story. 

In those old days the pilgrims who came to 
Canterbury approached the holy city by one of 
the three following routes. There was first of all 
the road taken by Chaucer's pilgrims from Lon- 
don, through Deptford, Greenwich, Rochester, 
and Sittingbourne; the way trodden by all who 
came from the North, the Midlands, and the 
Eastern Counties, and by those foreigners who, 
like Erasmus, had first visited London. But 
the greater number of the foreign pilgrims from 
France, Germany, and Italy landed at Sandwich 
Haven or Dover, and approached Canterbury 
from the south ; while others, especially those 
who came from Normandy and Brittany, landed 
at Southampton and travelled through the 
southern counties of Hampshire, Surrey, and 
Kent. Many of these doubtless stopped at Win- 
chester, attracted by the fame of St. Swithun, 
the great healing Bishop ; and either here or 
else at Guildford, they would be joined by the 



4 THE PILGRIMS WAY 

pilgrims from the West of England on their 
way to the Shrine of Canterbury. This was 
the route taken by Henry II. when, landing at 
Southampton on his return from France, he 
made his first memorable pilgrimage to the tomb 
of the murdered Archbishop, in the month of 
July, 1 174. And this route it is, which, trodden 
by thousands of pilgrims during the next three 
centuries, may still be clearly defined through the 
greater part of its course, and which in Surrey 
and Kent bears the historic name of the Pilgrims' 
Way. A very ancient path it is, older far than 
the days of Plantagenets and Normans, of shrines 
and pilgrimages. For antiquarian researches 
have abundantly proved this road to be an old 
British track, which was in use even before the 
coming of the Romans. It may even have been, 
as some writers suppose, the road along which 
caravans of merchants brought their ingots of 
tin from Cornwall to be shipped at what was 
then the great harbour of Britain, the Rutupine 
Port, afterwards Sandwich Haven, and then 
borne overland to Massilia and the Mediterranean 
shores. Ingots of tin, buried it may be in haste 



THE TIN ROAD 5 

by merchants attacked on their journey by 
robbers, have, it is said, been dug up at various 
places along this route, and British earthworks 
have been found in its immediate neighbour- 
hood. 

The road was, there can be no doubt, used 
by the Romans ; and all along its course remains 
of Roman villas, baths, and pavements have 
been brought to light, together with large quan- 
tities of Roman coins, cinerary urns, and pottery 
of the most varied description. In mediaeval 
days this " tin road," as Mr. Grant Allen calls 
it, still remained the principal thoroughfare from 
the West to the East of England. It followed 
the long line of hills which runs through the 
north of Hampshire, and across Surrey and 
Kent, that famous chalk ridge which has for us 
so many different associations, with whose scenery 
William Cobbett, for instance, has made us all 
familiar in the story of his rides to and from 
the Wen. And it lay outside the great trackless 
and impassable forest of Anderida, which in those 
days still covered a great part of the south-east 
counties of England. Dean Stanley, in his 



6 THE PILGRIMS WAY 

eloquent account of the Canterbury pilgrimage, 
describes this road as a byway, and remarks that 
the pilgrims avoided the regular roads, " probably 
for the same reason as in the days of Shamgar, 
the son of Anath, the highways were unoccupied, 
and the traveller walked through byways." But 
the statement is misleading, and there can be 
little doubt that in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries this road was, if not the only means 
of communication between West and East, at 
least the principal thoroughfare across this part 
of England, and was as such the route naturally 
chosen by pilgrims to Canterbury. 

Certain peculiarities, it is interesting to notice, 
mark its course from beginning to end. It clings 
to the hills, and, wherever it is possible, avoids 
the marshy ground of the valleys. It runs, not 
on the summit of the downs, but about half-way 
down the hill-side, where there is shelter from 
the wind, as well as sunshine to be had under 
the crest of the ridge. And its course is marked 
by rows of yew trees, often remarkable for their 
size and antiquity. Some of these are at least 
seven or eight hundred years old, and must have 



THE YEW-TREE S SHADE 7 

reared their ancient boughs on the hill-side before 
the feet of pilgrims ever trod these paths. So 
striking is this feature of the road, and so fixed 
is the idea that some connection exists between 
these yew trees and the Pilgrims' Way, that they 
are often said to have been planted with the 
express object of guiding travellers along the 
road to Canterbury. This, however, we need 
hardly say, is a fallacy. Yews are by no means 
peculiar to the Pilgrims' Way, but are to be 
found along every road in chalk districts. They 
spring up in every old hedgerow on this soil, 
and are for the most part sown by the birds. 
But the presence of these venerable and pictur- 
esque forms does lend an undeniable charm to 
the ancient track. And in some places where the 
line of cultivation gradually spreading upwards 
has blotted out every other trace of the road, 
where the ploughshare has upturned the sod, and 
the hedgerows have disappeared, three or four 
of these grand old trees may still be seen stand- 
ing by themselves in the midst of a ploughed 
field, the last relics of a bygone age. 

The murder of Becket took place on the 



8 



THE PILGRIMS WAY 







DOORWAY IN CANTERBURY CLOISTERS THROUGH WHICH BECKET 
PASSED ON HIS WAY TO VESPERS. 

29th of December, 1170. At five o'clock on 
that winter evening, as the Archbishop was on 



BECKET S CANTERBURY 9 

his way to vespers, the King's men, Reginald 
Fitz Urse and three knights who had accom- 
panied him from Saltwood Castle, rushed upon 
him with their swords and murdered him in 
the north transept of his own Cathedral. The 
tragic circumstance of Becket's end made a 
profound impression on the people of England, 
and universal horror was excited by this act 
of sacrilege. Whatever his faults may have 
been, the murdered Archbishop had dared to 
stand up against the Crown for the rights of 
the Church, and had died rather than yield 
to the King's demands. '* For the name of 
Jesus and the defence of the Church I am 
ready to die," were his last words, as he fell 
under the assassins' blows. When he landed 
at Sandwich, on his return from France, the 
country folk crowded to meet him and hailed 
him as the father of orphans and deliverer of 
the oppressed, crying, " Blessed is he that cometh 
in the name of the Lord." His journey to 
Canterbury was one long triumphal procession.^ 
The poor looked to him as their champion and 

1 W. H. Hutton, " Thomas Becket," p. 249. 



lO THE PILGRIMS WAY 

defender, who had laid down his life in the cause 
of freedom and righteousness. Henceforth Thomas 
became a national hero, and was everywhere 
honoured as the Martyr of the English. 

The popular belief in his holiness was con- 
firmed by the miracles that were wrought in 
his name from the moment of his death. A 
violent storm broke over the Cathedral when the 
fatal deed was done, and was followed by a red 
glow, which illuminated the choir where the dead 
man's body was laid before the altar. The next 
day the monks buried the corpse in a marble tomb 
behind Our Lady's altar in the under-croft. For 
nearly a year no mass was said in the Cathedral, 
no music was heard, no bells were rung ; the 
altars were stripped of their ornaments, and the 
crucifixes and images were covered over. Mean- 
while, reports reached Canterbury of the wonder- 
ful cures performed by the martyred Archbishop. 
On the third day after the murder, the wife of 
a Sussex knight, who suffered from blindness, 
invoked the blessed martyr's help, and was 
restored to sight. And on the very night of 
the burial the paralytic wife of a citizen of 



SIGNS AND WONDERS II 

Canterbury was cured by a garment which her 
husband had dipped in the murdered saint's 
blood. 

These marvels were followed by a stream of 
devout pilgrims who came to seek healing at the 
martyr's tomb or to pay their vows for the 
mercies which they had received. A monk was 
stationed at the grave to receive offerings and 
report the miracles that were wrought to the 
Chapter. At first these wonders were kept secret, 
for fear of the King, and of Becket's enemies, the 
De Brocs, whose men guarded the roads to 
Canterbury. The doors of the crypt were kept 
bolted and barred, and only the poor in the town 
and the neighbouring villages crept to the tomb.^ 
But on Easter Day, 1171, the crowds rushed in 
to see a dumb man who was said to have recovered 
his speech ; and on the following Friday the crypt 
was thrown open to the public. From that time, 
writes Benedict, the monk of Canterbury, " the 
scene of the Pool of Bethesda was daily renewed 
in the Cathedral, and numbers of sick and help- 
less persons were to be seen lying on the pave- 

' E. Abbott, " St. Thomas of Canterbury," i. 223. 



12 THE PILGRIMS WAY 

ment of the great church." ^ '' These great miracles 
are wrought," wrote John of Salisbury, an intimate 
friend of Becket, who became Bishop of Chartres 
in II 76, and was an able statesman and scholar, 
'' in the place of his passion and in the place 
where he lay before the great altar before his burial, 
and in the tomb where he was laid at last, the 
blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the 
lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and, a thing un- 
heard of since the days of our fathers, the dead 
are raised to life." ^ 

From all parts of England the sick and 
suffering now crowded to Canterbury, telling 
the same marvellous tale, how Thomas had 
appeared to them robed in white, with the thin 
red streak of blood across his face, bringing heal- 
ing and peace. "In towns and villages, in castles 
and cottages, throughout the kingdom," writes 
another contemporary chronicler, '* every one from 
the highest to the lowest wishes to visit and 
honour his tomb. Clerks and laymen, rich and 



^ T. C. Robertson, " Materials for the History of Archbishop 
Becket," ii. 47, iv. 145. 
^ Oj>. cit. p. 322. 



14 THE PILGRIMS WAY 

poor, nobles and common people, fathers and 
mothers with their children, masters with their 
servants, all come hither, moved by the same 
spirit of devotion. They travel by day and night 
in winter and summer, however cold the weather 
may be, and the inns and hostelries on the road 
to Canterbury are as crowded with people as 
great cities are on market days." ^ 

On the 2 1 St of February, 1173, Pope Alex- 
ander III. pronounced the decree of canonisation, 
and fixed the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury 
on the day of the Archbishop's martyrdom. In 
July, 1 1 74, King Henry II., moved by the reports 
which reached him in Normandy of the popular 
enthusiasm for Becket, and fearing the effects of 
the divine wrath, came himself to do penance at 
the martyr's tomb. Three months after the King 
of the English had given this public proof of his 
penitence and obtained release from the Church's 
censures, " the glorious choir of Conrad " was 
destroyed by fire, on the night of September 5, 
II 74. The rebuilding of the church, which was 
largely assisted by offerings at Becket's tomb, 

^ " Anonymus Lambethiensis. Materials," ii. 140. 



BECKET S CROWN 



15 




THE ENTRANCE TO ST. CROSS HOSPITAL. 



was not finished until 1220, when the Saint's 
body was removed to its final resting-place in 
the new apse at the East end of the Chapel of 
the Blessed Trinity, where the Archbishop had 
said his first mass. 

On Tuesday, July 7, an immense concourse 
of people of all ranks and ages assembled at 
Canterbury. "The city and villages round," 
writes an eye-witness, " were so filled with folk 



l6 THE pilgrims' WAY 

that many had to abide in tents or under the 
open sky."^ Free hospitality was given to all, and 
the streets of Canterbury literally flowed with wine. 
A stately procession, led by the young King 
Henry III. and the patriot Archbishop Stephen 
Langton, entered the crypt, and bore the Saint's 
remains with solemn ceremonial to their new 
resting-place. Here a sumptuous shrine, adorned 
with gold plates and precious gems, wrought *'by 
the greatest master of the craft " that could be 
found in England, received the martyr's relics, 
and the new apse became known as " Becket's 
Crown." 

The fame of St. Thomas now spread into 
all parts of the world during the next two cen- 
turies, and the Canterbury pilgrimage was the 
most popular in Christendom. The 7th of July 
was solemnly set apart as the Feast of the 
Translation of St. Thomas, and henceforth the 
splendour of this festival threw the anniversary 
of the actual martyrdom into the shade. The 
very fact that it took place in summer and not 
in winter naturally attracted greater numbers of 

^ "Thomas Saga," ii. 202. 



AS CHAUCER SINGS I7 

pilgrims from a distance. And on the jubilees 
or fiftieth anniversaries of the Translation, the 
concourse of people assembled at Canterbury 
was enormous. 

Besides the crowds attracted by these two 
chief festivals, pilgrims came to Canterbury in 
smaller parties at all seasons of the year, but 
more especially in the spring and summer months. 
Each year, as Chaucer sings, when the spring- 
time comes round, 

" When that Aprille with his showers sweete 
The drought of Marche had pierced to the roote . . . 
When Zephyrus eke with his sweete breathe 
Inspired hath in every holt and heathe 
The tender croppes, . . . 
And small fowles maken melodic, 
That sleepen all the night with open eye, 
Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages, 
And palmers for to seeken strange ' strandes ' . . , 
And specially, from every shire's ende 
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, 
The holy blissful martyr for to seeke 
That them hath holpen when that they were sicke." 

The passage of these caravans of pilgrims could 
not fail to leave its mark on the places and the 
people along their path. The sight of these 



i8 



THE PILGRIMS WAY 




H,u M'^.*^C^^^ti^-i;.V^''^^'%:^^-\ ^ ^^'"^ "'^ 



^<"^mi.ii::: 






BOX HILL. 



strange faces, the news they brought, and the 
tales they told must have impressed the dwellers 
in these quiet woodlands and lonely hills. And 
traces of their presence remain to this day on the 
Surrey downs and in the lanes of Kent. They 
may, or may not, have been responsible for the 
edible variety of large white snails, Helix pomatia, 
commonly called Roman snails, which are found 
in such abundance at Albury in Surrey, and at 
Charing in Kent, as well as at other places along 



WAYSIDE MEMORIALS I9 

the road, and which the Norman French pilgrims 
are traditionally said to have brought over with 
them. But the memory of their pilgrimage sur- 
vives in the wayside chapels and shrines which 
sprung up along the track, in the churches which 
were built for their benefit, or restored and 
decorated by their devotion, above all in the 
local names still in common use along the country- 
side. Pilgrims' Lodge and Pilgrims' Ferry, 
Palmers' Wood, Paternoster Lane — these, and 
similar terms, still speak of the custom which 
had taken such fast hold of the popular mind 
during the three hundred and fifty years after 
the death of Becket, and recall the long proces- 
sions of pilgrims which once wound over these 
lonely hills and through these green lanes on 
their way to the martyr's shrine. 




.r 












n 

"I 



THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER II 



WINCHESTER TO ALTON 



Few traces of the Pilgrims' Way are now to be 
found in Hampshire. But early writers speak 
of an old road which led to Canterbury from 
Winchester, and the travellers' course would in 
all probability take them through this ancient 
city. Here the foreign pilgrims who landed at 
Southampton, and those who came from the 
West of England, would find friendly shelter in 
one or other of the religious houses, and enjoy 



AT WINCHESTER 



21 




ROOF OF strangers' HALL, WINCHESTER. 



a brief resting-time before they faced the perils 
of the road. The old capital of Wessex, the 
home of Alfred, and favourite residence of Saxon 
and Norman kings, had many attractions to 
offer to the devout pilgrim. Here was the 
splendid golden shrine of St. Swithun, the gentle 
Bishop who had watched over the boyhood of 
Alfred. In a.d. 971, a hundred years after the 
Saint's death, his bones had been solemnly re- 



22 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

moved from their resting-place on the north side 
of the Minster, where he had humbly begged to 
be buried " so that the sun might not shine upon 
him," and laid by Edgar and Dunstan behind the 
altar of the new Cathedral which Bishop Ethel- 
wold had raised on the site of the ancient church 
of Birinus. This was done, says the chronicler 
Wulfstan, although the Saint himself " protested 
weeping that his body ought not to be set in 
God's holy church amidst the splendid memorials 
of the ancient fathers," a legend which may have 
given rise to the popular tradition of the forty 
days' rain, and the supposed delay in the Saint's 
funeral. From that time countless miracles were 
wrought at the shrine of St. Swithun, and multi- 
tudes from all parts of England flocked to seek 
blessing and healing at the great church which 
henceforth bore his name. 

Under the rule of Norman and Angevin 
kings, the venerable city had attained the height 
of wealth and prosperity. In those days the 
population numbered some 20,000, and there are 
said to have been as many as 173 churches 
and chapels within its wall. In spite of the 




Th.W<..rGala W'incli«.U-T M 



THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER. 



24 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

horrors of civil war, which twice desolated the 
streets, in the time of Stephen and Henry III., 
the frequent presence of the court and the 
energy of her prince-bishops had made Win- 
chester a centre of religious and literary activity. 
And, although after the death of Henry HI., 
who throughout his long life remained faithful 
to his native city, royal visits became few and 
far between, and the old capital lost something 
of its brilliancy, there was still much to attract 
strangers and strike the imagination of the way- 
farer who entered her gates in the fifteenth 
century. Few mediaeval cities could boast founda- 
tions of equal size and splendour. There was 
the strong castle of Wolvesey, where the bishops 
reigned in state, and the royal palace by the 
West gate, built by King Henry HI., with the 
fair Gothic hall which he had decorated so 
lavishly. There was the Hospital of St. Cross, 
founded by the warrior-bishop, Henry de Blois, 
and the new College of St. Mary, which William 
of Wykeham, the great master-builder, had reared 
in the meadows known as the Greenery, or pro- 
menade of the monks of St. Swithun. Another 




WINCHESTER CA'IHKDKAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR. 



[p- 25 



ST. SWITHUN 25 

venerable hospital, that of St. John's, claimed 
to have been founded by Birinus, and on Morne 
Hill, just outside the East gate, stood a hospital 
for lepers, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. 
There, conspicuous among a crowd of religious 
houses by their wealth and antiquity, were the 
two great Benedictine communities of St. Swithun 
and Hyde. And there, too, was the grand 
Norman church which the Conqueror's kinsman. 
Bishop Walkelin, had raised on the ruins of 
Ethelwold's Minster, with its low massive tower 
and noble transepts, and the long nave roofed in 
with solid trees of oak cut down in Hempage 
Wood. Three centuries later, William of Wyke- 
ham transformed the nave after the latest fashion 
of architecture, cut through the old Norman work, 
carried up the piers to a lofty height, and replaced 
the flat wooden roof by fine stone groining. But 
the Norman tower and transepts of Bishop 
Walkelin's church still remain to-day almost un- 
changed. 

So great was the concourse of pilgrims to 
St. Swithun's shrine in the early part of the four- 
teenth century, that Bishop Godfrey Lucy enlarged 



26 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

the eastward portion of the church, and built, as 
it were, another church, with nave, aisles, and 
Lady Chapel of its own, under the same roof. 
The monks had no great love for the lower class 
of pilgrims who thronged their doors, and took 
good care to keep them out of the conventual 
precincts. They were only allowed to enter the 
Minster by a doorway in the north transept, and, 
once they had visited the shrine and duly made 
their offerings, they were jealously excluded from 
the rest of the church by those fine ironwork 
gates still preserved in the Cathedral, and said 
to be the oldest specimen of the kind in England. 
Towards the close of the century, in the reign 
of Edward I., the fine old building still known 
as the Strangers' Hall was built by the monks of 
St. Swithun at their convent gate, for the re- 
ception of the poorer pilgrims. Here they found 
food and shelter for the night. They slept, ate 
their meals, and drank their ale, and made merry 
round one big central fire. The hall is now 
divided, and is partly used as the Dean's stable, 
partly enclosed in a Canon's house, but traces of 
rudely carved heads, a bearded king, and a nun's 



28 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

face are still visible on the massive timbers of 
the vaulted roof, blackened with the smoke of 
bygone ages. In the morning the same pilgrims 
would wend their way to the doors of the Prior's 
lodging, and standing under the three beautiful 
pointed arches which form the entrance to the 
present Deanery, would there receive alms in 
money and fragments of bread and meat to help 
them on their journey. 

The route which they took on leaving Win- 
chester is uncertain. It is not till we approach 
Alton that we find the first traces of the Pilgrims' 
Way, but in all probability they followed the 
Roman road which still leads to Silchester and 
London along the valley of the river Itchen. 
Immediately outside the city gates they would 
find themselves before another stately pile of con- 
ventual buildings, the great Abbey of Hyde. This 
famous Benedictine house, founded by Alfred, and 
long known as the New Minster, was first re- 
moved from its original site near the Cathedral 
in the twelfth century. Finding their house damp 
and unhealthy, and feeling themselves cramped 
in the narrow space close to the rival monastery 




-^ 



KING S GATE, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE. 



SACRILEGE 29 

of St. Swithun, the monks obtained a charter 
from Henry I. giving them leave to settle out- 
side the North gate. In the year mo, they 
moved to their new home, bearing with them 
the wonder-working shrine of St. Josse, the great 
silver cross given to the New Minster by Cnut, 
and a yet more precious relic, the bones of Alfred 
the Great. Here in the green meadows on the 
banks of the Itchen they reared the walls of their 
new convent and the magnificent church which, 
after being in the next reign burnt to the ground 
by fire-balls from Henry of Blois' Castle at 
Wolvesey, rose again from the flames fairer and 
richer than before. Here it stood till the Disso- 
lution, when Thomas Wriothesley, Cromwell's 
Commissioner, stripped the shrine of its treasures, 
carried off the gold and jewels, and pulled down 
the abbey walls to use the stone in the building 
of his own great house at Stratton. ** We in- 
tend," he wrote to his master, after describing 
the riches of gold and silver plate, the crosses 
studded with pearls, chalices, and emeralds on 
which he had lain sacrilegious hands, " both at 
Hyde and St. Mary to sweep away all the rotten 



30 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

bones that be called relics ; which we may not 
omit, lest it be thought we came more for the 
treasure than for the avoiding of the abomination 
of idolatry." Considerable fragments of the build- 
ing still remained. In Milner's time the ruins 
covered the whole meadow, but towards the end 
of the last century the city authorities fixed 
on the spot as the site of a new bridewell, and 
all that was left of the once famous Abbey was 
then destroyed. The tombs of the dead were 
rifled. At every stroke of the spade some ancient 
sepulchre was violated, stone coffins containing 
chalices, croziers, rings, were broken open and 
bones scattered abroad. Then the ashes of the 
noblest of our kings were blown to the winds, 
and the resting-place of Alfred remains to this 
day unknown. A stone marked with the words, 
Alfred Rex, DCCCLXXXL, was carried off by 
a passing stranger, and is now to be seen at 
Corby Castle, in Cumberland. To-day an old 
gateway near the church of St. Bartholomew and 
some fragments of the monastery wall are the 
only remains of Alfred's new Minster. 

From this spot an ancient causeway, now 



THE MONKS WALK 3I 

commonly known as the Nuns' Walk, but which 
in the last century bore the more correct title of 
the Monks' Walk, leads alongside of a stream 
which supplied Hyde Abbey with water, for a 
mile and a half up the valley to Headbourne^ 
Worthy. The path is cool and shady, planted 
with a double row of tall elms, and as we look 
back we have beautiful views of the venerable 
city and the great Cathedral sleeping in the quiet 
hollow, dreaming of all its mighty past. Above, 
scarred with the marks of a deep railway cutting, 
and built over with new houses, is St. Giles' Hill, 
where during many centuries the famous fair was 
held each September, Foreign pilgrims would 
gaze with interest on the scene of that yearly 
event, which had attained a world-wide fame, and 
attracted merchants from all parts of France, 
Flanders, and Italy. The green hill-side from 
which we look down on the streets and towers 
of Winchester presented a lively spectacle during 
that fortnight. The stalls were arranged in long 
rows and called after the nationality of the 
vendors of the goods they sold. There was the 

^ Hyde Bourne. 



32 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

Street of Caen, of Limoges, of the Flemings, of 
the Genoese, the Drapery, the Goldsmiths' Stall, 
the Spicery, held by the monks of St. Swithun, 
who drove a brisk trade in furs and groceries on 
these occasions. All shops in the city and for 
seven leagues round were closed during the fair, 
and local trade was entirely suspended. The 
mayor handed over the keys of the city for the 
time being to the bishop, who had large profits 
from the tolls and had stalls at the fair himself, 
while smaller portions went to the abbeys, and 
thirty marks a year were paid to St. Swithun's 
for the repair of the great church. The Red King 
first granted his kinsman, Bishop Walkelin, the 
tolls of this three days' fair at St. Giles' feast, 
which privilege was afterwards extended to a 
period of sixteen days by Henry III. The great 
fair lasted until modern times, but in due course 
was removed from St. Giles' Hill into the city 
itself. " As the city grew stronger and the fair 
weaker," writes Dean Kitchin, " it slid down St. 
Giles' Hill and entered the town, where its noisy 
ghost still holds revel once a year." 

Leaving these historic memories behind us we 



HTHOVI aUT MO^^ JAHCiaHTAD HaxaaHDviiv/ 



32 

Flemings, of 

ths' Stall, 

Swithun, , 

ries on 

nd for 

me fair, 

iKied. The 

■^-^ for the 

-j^v.. profits 

fair himself, 

abbeys, and 

C4- C *4-V-« ' - 

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE N^RTlt 

iirch The Red Kine 

Bishop Walkelin, the 

iles' feast, 

■ tended to a 

leriiy The great 

n due course 

into the city 

Mi^ci and the fair 

, "it slid down St 

.. /Wn. whrrr^ it~ noi=;\ 

■ICC a yeai 

aemor • us we 



I 



HEADBOURNE WORTHY 33 

follow the Monks' Walk until we reach Head- 
bourne Worthy, the first of a group of villages 
granted by Egbert, in 825, to St. Swithun's Priory, 
and bearing this quaint name, derived from the 
Saxon woerth — a homestead. The church here 
dates from Saxon times, and claims to have been 
founded by St. Wilfred. The rude west doorway 
and chancel arch are said to belong to Edward 
the Confessors time. Over the west archway, 
which now leads into a fifteenth-century chapel, 
is a fine sculptured bas-relief larger than life, re- 
presenting the Crucifixion and the Maries, which 
probably originally adorned the exterior of the 
church. But the most interesting thing in the 
church is the brass to John Kent, a Winchester 
scholar, who died in 1434. The boy wears his 
college gown and his hair is closely cut, while a 
scroll comes out of his lips bearing the words : 
" Misericordiam Dni inetum cantabo." Next we 
reach Kingsworthy, so called because it was once 
Crown property, a pretty little village with low 
square ivy-grown church-tower and lych-gate, 
and a charming old-fashioned inn standing a little 
back from the road. 
3 



34 



WINCHESTER TO ALTON 







THATCHED COTTAGE, MARTYR WORTHY. 

The third of the Worthys, Abbotsworthy, is 
now united to Kingsworthy. Passing through its 
little street of houses, a mile farther on we reach 
Martyrsworthy, a still smaller village with another 
old Norman church and low thatched cottages, 
picturesquely placed near the banks of the river, 
which is here crossed by a wooden foot-bridge. 
But all this part of the Itchen valley has the 
same charm. Everywhere we find the same old 
farmhouses with mullioned windows and sun- 



THE ITCHEN VALLEY 35 

dials and yew trees, the same straggling roofs 
brilliant with yellow lichen, and the same cottages 
and gardens gay with lilies and phloxes, the same 
green lanes shaded with tall elms and poplars, 
the same low chalk hills and wooded distances 
closing in the valley, and below the bright river 
winding its way through the cool meadows. 
" The Itchen — the beautiful Itchen valley," ex- 
claims Cobbett, as he rides along this vale of 
meadows. " There are few spots in England 
more fertile, or more pleasant, none, I believe, 
more healthy. The fertility of this vale and of 
the surrounding country is best proved by the 
fact that, besides the town of Alresford and that 
of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each 
having its parish church, upon its borders. 
When we consider these things, we are not sur- 
prised that a spot situated about half-way down 
this vale should have been chosen for the build- 
ing of a city, or that that city should have been 
for a great number of years the place of residence 
for the kings of England." 

Towards Itchen Abbas — of the Abbot — the 
valley opens, and we see the noble avenues and 



36 



WINCHESTER TO ALTON 










ClU-l F».r. 7. ItcWnAUai M 



'fk^^li^K 



CHILLAND FARM, NEAR ITCHEN ABBAS. 

Spreading beeches of Avington Park, long the 
property of the Dukes of Chandos, and often 
visited by Charles 11. while Wren was building 
his red-brick palace at Winchester. Here the 
Merry Monarch feasted his friends in a banquet- 
ing-hall that is now a greenhouse, and a room 
in the old house bore the name of Nell Gwynne's 
closet. In those days it was the residence of the 
notorious Lady Shrewsbury, afterwards the wife 
of George Brydges, a member of the Chandos 



ITCHEN STOKE 37 

family, the lady whose first husband, Francis, 
Earl of Shrewsbury, was slain fighting in a duel 
with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, while 
the Countess herself, disguised as a page, held 
her lover's horse. 

The river winds through the park, and between 
the over-arching boughs of the forest trees we 
catch lovely glimpses of wood and water. In 
the opposite direction, but also close to Itchen 
Abbas, is another well-known seat. Lord Ash- 
burton's famous Grange, often visited by Carlyle. 
Here the dark tints of yew and fir mingle with 
the bright hues of lime and beech and silver 
birch on the banks of a clear lake, and long 
grassy glades lead up to wild gorse-grown 
slopes of open down. Still following the river 
banks we reach Itchen Stoke, another pictur- 
esque village with timbered cottages and mossy 
roofs. A little modern church, with high-pitched 
roof and lancet windows having a curiously 
foreign air, stands among the tall pines on a 
steep bank above the stream. But here our 
pleasant journey along the fair Itchen valley 
comes to an end, and, leaving the river-side, 
3* 



38 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

we climb the hilly road which leads us into | 
Alresford. 

New Alresford, a clean, bright little town, 
with broad street, planted with rows of trees, 
boasts an antiquity which belies its name, and 
has been a market-town and borough from time 
immemorial. Like its yet more venerable neigh- 
bour. Old Alresford, it was given by a king of 
the West Saxons to the prior and monks of 
St. Swithun at Winchester, and formed part 
of the vast possessions of the monastery at the 
Conquest. Both places took their name from 
their situation on a ford of the Arle or Aire 
river, a considerable stream which joins the Itchen 
below Avington, and is called by Leland the 
Alresford river. In the eleventh century New 
Alresford had fallen into decay, and probably 
owes its present existence to Bishop Godfrey 
Lucy, who rebuilt the town, and obtained a 
charter from King John restoring the market, 
which had fallen into disuse. At the same time 
he gave the town the name of New Market, but 
the older one survived, and the Bishop's new 
title was never generally adopted. The same 



NEW ALRESFORD 39 

energetic prelate bestowed a great deal of care 
and considerable attention on the water supply of 
Winchester, and made the Itchen navigable all 
the way from Southampton to Alresford. 

In recognition of this important service, Bishop 
Lucy received from King John the right of levy- 
ing toll on all leather, hides, and other goods 
which entered Winchester by the river Itchen 
through this canal, a right which descended to 
his successors in the see. South-west of the 
town is the large pond or reservoir which he 
made to supply the waters of the Itchen. This 
lake, which still covers about sixty acres, is a 
well-known haunt of moor-hens and other water- 
fowl, and the flags and bulrushes which fringe 
its banks make it a favourable resort of artists. 
Old Alresford itself, with its gay flower-gardens, 
tall elms, pretty old thatched cottages grouped 
round the village green, may well supply them 
with more than one subject for pen and pencil. 

New Alresford was at one time a flourishing 
centre of the cloth trade, in which the Winchester 
merchants drove so brisk a trade at St. Giles' 
Fair. The manufacture of woollen cloth was 



40 



WINCHESTER TO ALTON 




NEW ALRESFORD. 



carried on till quite recent times, and Dean Kitchin 
tells us that there are old men still living who 
remember driving with their fathers to the fair 
at Winchester on St. Giles' day, to buy a roll 
of blue cloth to provide the family suits for the 
year. But New Alresford shared the decline as 
it had shared the prosperity of its more important 
neighbour, and suffered even more severely than 
Winchester in the Civil Wars, when the town 



TICHBORNE PARK 4I 

was almost entirely burnt down by Lord Hopton's 
troops after their defeat in Cheriton fight. The 
scene of that hard-fought battle, which gave 
Winchester into Waller's hands and ruined the 
King's cause in the West of England, lies a few 
miles to the south of Alresford. Half-way be- 
tween the two is Tichborne Park, the seat of a 
family which has owned this estate from the days 
of Harold, and which took its name from the 
stream flowing through the parish, and called the 
Ticceborne in Anglo-Saxon records. In modern 
times a well-known case has given the name of 
Tichborne an unenviable notoriety, but members 
of this ancient house have been illustrious at all 
periods of our history, and the legend of the 
Tichborne Dole so long associated with the spot 
deserves to be remembered. In the reign of 
Henry I., Isabella, the wife of Sir Roger Tich- 
borne, a lady whose long life had been spent in 
deeds of mercy, prayed her husband as she lay 
dying to grant her as much land as would enable 
her to leave a dole of bread for all who asked 
alms at the gates of Tichborne on each succeeding 
Lady Day. Sir Roger was a knight of sterner 



42 WINCHESTER TO ALTON 

stuff, and seizing a flaming brand from the hearth 
he told his wife jestingly that she might have 
as much land as she could herself walk over 
before the burning torch went out. Upon which 
the sick lady caused herself to be borne from her 
bed to a piece of ground within the manor, and 
crawled on her knees and hands until she had 
encircled twenty-three acres. The actual plot of 
ground still bears the name of Lady Tichborne's 
Crawles, and there was an old prophecy which 
said that the house of Tichborne would only last 
as long as the dying bequest of Isabella was 
carried out. During the next six centuries, nine- 
teen hundred small loaves were regularly dis- 
tributed to the poor at the gates on Lady Day, 
and a miraculous virtue was supposed to belong 
to bread thus bestowed. The custom was only 
abandoned a hundred years ago, owing to the 
number of idlers and bad characters which it 
brought into the neighbourhood, and a sum of 
money equal in amount to the Dole is given to 
the poor of the parish in its stead. 

Whether any of our Canterbury pilgrims 
stopped in their course to avail themselves of the 



PILGRIMS PLACE 43 

Tichborne Dole we cannot say, but there was 
a manor-house of the Bishops of Winchester at 
Bishop Sutton, near Alresford, where they would 
no doubt find food and shelter. Nothing now 
remains of the episcopal palace, and no trace of 
its precincts is preserved but the site of the 
bishop's kennels. 

After crossing the river at Alresford the pil- 
grims turned north-east, and according to an 
old tradition their road led them through the 
parish of Ropley, a neighbouring village where 
Roman remains have been discovered. A little 
further on the same track, close to Rotherfield 
Park, where the modern mansion of Pelham now 
stands, was an ancient house which bore the 
name of Pilgrims' Place, and is indicated as such 
in old maps. 




THE hog's back. 



CHAPTER III 



ALTON TO COMPTON 

A FEW miles to the right of the road is a place 
which no pilgrim of modern times can leave un- 
visited — Selborne, White's Selborne, the home of 
the gentle naturalist whose memory haunts these 
rural scenes. Here he lived in the picturesque 
house overgrown with creepers, with the sunny 
garden and dial at the back, and the great spread- 
ing oak where he loved to study the ways of the 
owls, and the juniper tree, which, to his joy, 
survived the Siberian winter of 1776. And here 

44 



SELBORNE 45 

he died, and lies buried in the quiet churchyard 
in the shade of the old yew tree where he so often 
stood to watch his favourite birds. Not a stone 
but what speaks of him, not a turn in the village 
street but has its tale to tell. The play-stow, or 
village green, which Adam de Gurdon granted 
to the Augustinian Canons of Selborne in the 
thirteenth century, where the prior held his 
market of old, and where young and old met on 
summer evenings under the big oak, and " sat in 
quiet debate" or '* frolicked and danced" before 
him ; the farmhouse which now marks the site 
of the ancient Priory itself, founded by Peter de 
Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, in 1232 — he has 
described them all. How the good Canons grew 
lazy and secular in their ways after a time, how 
William of Wykeham found certain of them pro- 
fessed hunters and sportsmen, and tried in vain 
to reform them, and how the estates were finally 
handed over to the new college of St. Mary 
Magdalene at Oxford, by its founder, William 
of Waynflete — Gilbert White has already told us. 
The Hanger, with its wooded slopes, rising from 
the back of his garden, and that " noble chalk 



46 ALTON TO COMPTON 

promontory" of Nore Hill, planted with the 
beeches which he called the most lovely of all 
forest trees, how familiar they seem to us ! Still 
the swifts wheel to and fro round the low church- 
tower, and the crickets chirp in the long grass, 
and the white owl is heard at night, just as when 
he used to linger under the old walls and watch 
their manners with infinite care and love. 

One of the '' rocky hollow lanes " which lead 
towards Alton will take us back into the road, and 
bring us to Chawton, a village about a mile from 
that town. The fine Elizabethan manor-house 
at the foot of the green knoll, and the grey church 
peeping out of the trees close by, have been for 
centuries the home and burial-place of the Knights. 
On the south side of the chancel a black and white 
marble monument records the memory of that 
gallant cavalier, Sir Richard Knight, who risked 
life and fortune in the Royal cause, and was 
invested with the Order of the Royal Oak by 
Charles II. after the Restoration. But it is as 
the place where Jane Austen, in George Eliot's 
opinion, " the greatest artist that has ever written," 
composed her novels, that Chawton is memorable. 



48 ALTON TO COMPTON 

The cottage where she lived is still standing a 
few hundred yards from the "great house," which 
was the home of the brother and nieces to whom 
she was so fondly attached. She and her sister, 
Cassandra, settled there in 1809, and remained 
there until May, 181 7, when they moved to the 
corner house of College Street, Winchester, where 
three months afterwards she died. During the 
eight years spent in this quiet home, Jane 
Austen attained the height of her powers and 
wrote her most famous novels, those works which 
she herself said cost her so little, and which in 
Tennyson's words have given her a place in 
English literature "next to Shakespeare." "Sense 
and Sensibility," her first novel, was published 
two years after the move to Chawton. " Per- 
suasion," the last and most finished of the im- 
mortal series, was only written in 1816, a year 
before her death. Seldom, indeed, has so great 
a novelist led so retired an existence. The life 
at Chawton, so smooth in its even flow, with the 
daily round of small excitements and quiet plea- 
sures, the visits to the " great house," and walks 
with her nieces in the woods, the shopping ex- 



JANE AUSTEN 49 

peditions to Alton, the talk about new bonnets 
and gowns, and the latest news as to the births, 
deaths, and marriages of the numerous relatives 
in Kent and Hampshire, are faithfully reflected in 
those pleasant letters of Jane Austen, which her 
great-nephew, Lord Brabourne, gave to the world. 
There is a good deal about her flowers, her 
chickens, her niece's love affairs, the fancy work 
on which she is engaged, the improvements in 
the house and garden — '' You cannot imagine," 
she writes on one occasion, '* it is not in human 
nature to imagine, what a nice walk we have 
round the orchard ! " — but very little indeed about 
her books. Almost the only allusion we find to 
one of her characters is in 1816, when she writes 
to Fanny Knight of Anne Elliot in " Persuasion." 
*' You may perhaps like the heroine, as she is 
almost too good for me ! " Anything like fame 
or publicity was positively distasteful to her. 
She owns to feeling absolutely terrified when a 
lady in town asked to be introduced to her, and 
then adds laughingly, *' If I am a wild beast I 
cannot help it, it is not my fault ! " 

Curiously enough, the Pilgrims' Way, in the 
4 



50 ALTON TO COMPTON 

later course of its path, brings us to Godmersham, 
that other and finer home of the Knights on the 
Kentish Downs, a place also associated with Jane 
Austen's life and letters, where she spent many 
pleasant hours in the midst of her family, enjoy- 
ing the beauty of the spot and its cheerful 
surroundings. But Chawton retains the supre- 
macy as her own home, and as the scene of 
those literary labours that were cut short, alas ! 
too soon. " What a pity," Sir Walter Scott ex- 
claimed, after reading a book of hers, " what a 
pity such a gifted creature died so early ! " 

From Chawton it is a short mile to Alton, 
famous for its breweries and hop gardens, and 
its church door, riddled with the bullets of the 
Roundheads. Our way now leads us through the 
woods of Alice Holt — Aisholt — the Ash wood ; 
like Woolmer, a royal forest from Saxon times. 
Alice Holt was renowned for the abundance of 
its fallow deer, which made it a favourite hunting 
ground with the Plantagenet kings, and on one 
occasion Edward H., it is said, gave one of his 
scullions, Morris Ken, the sum of twenty shillings 
because he fell from his horse so often out hunt- 



:;ic^uoH Mor//y-Hj 





mersham, 




on the 




h Jane 




many 




enjoy- 




iieerfu] 




supre- 




.ene of 




lort, alas 1 




Scott ex- 




vvhat a 


J HOUSE 


Alton, 




and 


the 


buiietb ot the 


w lead 


' ghthe 


-!t u 


ic -\-2Li wood ; 


from 


Saxon times. 


, >r the abundance of 


it a favourite hunting 


_, net kins* 


s, :w.d on one 


is said. 


of his 




killings 


horse so 


hunt- 



ALICE HOLT 51 

ing, " which made the king laugh exceedingly." 
Here, too, after the battle of Evesham, Edward, 
Prince of Wales, defeated Adam de Gurdon, one 
of Simon de Montfort's chief followers. He is 
said to have challenged the rebel baron to a single 
combat, in which Gurdon was wounded and made 
prisoner, but the victor spared his life and after- 
wards obtained a royal pardon for his vanquished 
foe. A wild rugged tract of country, Alice Holt 
was a chosen haunt of robbers and outlaws, the 
terror of the wealthy London merchants who 
journeyed to St. Giles' Fair at Winchester, and 
in the fourteenth century the wardens of the 
fair kept five mounted serjeants-at-arms in the 
forest near Alton, for their protection at that 
season. 

Soon after leaving Alton the pilgrims would 
catch their first sight of the river Wey, which 
rises close to the town. Along the banks of this 
stream, flowing as it does through some of the 
loveliest Surrey scenery, their road was now to 
lie, and not until they crossed St. Katherine's 
ferry, at Guildford, were they finally to lose sight 
of its waters. The river itself, more than one 



52 ALTON TO COMPTON 

writer has suggested, may owe its name to this 
circumstance, and have been originally called the 
Way river from the ancient road which followed 
the early part of its course. 

Leaving Froyle Park, Sir Hubert Miller's fine 
Jacobean house, on our left, we pass Bentley 
Station, and, still following the river, join the 
Portsmouth road just before entering Farnham. 
This town, which takes its name from the 
commons overgrown with fern and heather still 
to be seen in the neighbourhood on the Surrey 
side, is now surrounded with hop gardens. It 
was among the earliest possessions of the Bishops 
of Winchester, and formed part of the land granted 
to St. Swithun, in 860, by Alfred's elder brother, 
Ethelbald, King of Wessex. The Castle-palace, 
which still looks proudly down on the streets of 
the little town, was first built by that magnificent 
prelate, Henry of Blois, but little of the original 
building now remains except the offices, where 
some round Norman pillars may still be seen. 
Farnham Castle was partly destroyed by Henry HI. 
during his wars with the barons, and suffered 
greatly at the hands of the rebels in the time 



FARNHAM CASTLE 



53 




FARNHAM CASTLE. 



of Charles L, but was afterwards rebuilt by- 
Bishop Morley. Queen Elizabeth paid frequent 
visits here, and on one occasion, while dining in 
the great hall with the Duke of Norfolk, who 
was suspected of planning a marriage with Mary 
Queen of Scots, pleasantly advised the Duke to 
be careful on what pillow he laid his head. The 
lawn, with its stately cedars and grass-grown 
moat, deserves a visit, but the most interesting 



54 ALTON TO COMPTON 

part of the building is the fine old keep with its 
massive buttresses and thirteenth-century arches, 
commanding a wide view over the elm avenues 
of the park, and the commons which stretch east- 
ward on the Surrey side. Prominent in the 
foreground are the picturesque heights of Crooks- 
bury, crowned with those tall pines which 
Cobbett climbed when he was a boy, to take the 
nests of crows and magpies. 

Farnham, it must be remembered, was the 
birthplace of this remarkable man, and it was at 
Ash, a small town at the foot of the Hog's Back, 
that he died in 1835. All his life long he retained 
the fondest affection for these scenes of his youth. 
In 1825 he brought his son Richard, then a boy 
of eleven, to see the little old house in the street 
where he had lived with his grandmother, and 
showed him the garden at Waverley where he 
worked as a lad, the tree near the Abbey from 
which he fell into the river in a perilous attempt 
to take a crow's nest, and the strawberry beds 
where he gathered strawberries for Sir Robert 
Rich's table, taking care to eat the finest ! Among 
these hills and commons, where he followed the 



WILLIAM COBBETT 



55 




CtOoUlWry [torn N4«vl«nd> Corner 



CROOKSBURY FROM NEWLANDS CORNER. 



hounds on foot at ten years old, and rode across 
country at seventy, we forget the political aspect 
of his life, his bitter invectives against the Poor- 
laws and Paper-money, the National Debt and 
the System, and think rather of his keen love of 
nature and delight in the heaths, the sandy 
coppices, and forests of Surrey and Hampshire. 
And now he sleeps in the church of Farnham, 
where he desired to be buried, in the heart of 
the wild scenery which he loved so well. 

Just under Crooksbury, that ''grand scene" 
of Cobbett's "exploits," lies Moor Park, the re- 



56 ALTON TO COMPTON 

treat of Sir William Temple in his old age, 
which seemed to him, to quote his own words, 
" the sweetest place, I think, that I have ever seen 
in my life, either before or since, at home or 
abroad." There we may still see the gardens 
which the statesman of the Triple Alliance laid 
out after the fashion of those which he re- 
membered in Holland, where he enjoyed the 
companionship of his beloved sister. Lady Giffard, 
and where his heart lies buried under the sun- 
dial. Here Swift lived as his secretary, and 
learnt from King William HI. how to cut aspar- 
agus ; here he wrote the " Tale of a Tub," and 
made love to Mrs. Hester Johnson, Lady Giffard's 
pretty black-eyed waiting-maid. The memory of 
that immortal love-story has not yet perished, and 
the house where she lived is still known as Stella's 
Cottage. Here, too, just beyond Moor Park, on 
the banks of the Wey, are the ruins of Waverley 
Abbey, the first Cistercian house ever founded in 
England, often described as " le petit Citeaux," 
and the mother of many other abbeys. 

The more distinguished pilgrims who stopped 
at Farnham would taste the hospitality of the 



FARNHAM 57 

monks of Waverley, and Henry III. was on one 
occasion their guest. The Abbot of Waverley, 
too, was a great personage in these parts, and 
his influence extended over several parishes 
through which the pilgrims had to pass, al- 
though the privileges which he claimed were 
often disputed by the Prior of Newark, the other 
ecclesiastical magnate who reigned in this part 
of Surrey. Pilgrims of humbler rank would find 
ample accommodation in the ancient hostelries of 
Farnham, which was at that time a place of con- 
siderable importance, and returned two members 
to Edward II.'s Parliament 

Their onward course now lay along the banks 
of the Wey until they reached the foot of the 
narrow, curiously shaped chalk ridge known as the 
Hog's Back. Here, at a place called Whiteway 
End, the end of the white chalk road, two roads 
divide. Both lead to Guildford, the one keeping 
on the crest of the ridge, the other along its 
southern slope. 

The upper road has become an important 
thoroughfare in modern times, and is now the 
main road from Farnham to Guildford ; the lower 



58 ALTON TO COMPTON 

is a grassy lane, not always easy to follow, and 
little used in places, which leads through the 
parishes of Scale, Puttenham, and Compton, the 
bright little villages which stud the sides of 
the Hog's Back. This green woodland path under 
the downs was the ancient British and Roman 
track along which the Canterbury pilgrims 
journeyed, and which is still in some places spoken 
of by the inhabitants as the Way. Other names 
in local use bear the same witness. Beggar's 
Corner and Robber's or Roamer's Moor are sup- 
posed to owe their appellations to the pilgrims : 
while the ivy-grown manor-house of Shoelands, 
bearing the date of 16 16 on its porch, is said to 
take its name from the word " to shool," which in 
some dialects has the same meaning as "to beg." 
Another trace of the Pilgrimage is to be found 
in the local fairs which are still held in the towns 
and villages along the road, and which were 
fixed at those periods of the year when the 
pilgrims would be either going to Canterbury or 
returning from there. Thus we find that at 
Guildford the chief fair took place at Christmas, 
when the pilgrims would be on their way to the 



FAIRS 59 

winter festival of St. Thomas, and was only 
altered to September in 131 2, by which time the 
original day of the Saint's martyrdom had ceased 
to be as popular as the summer feast. Again the 
great fair at Shalford was fixed for the Feast of 
the Assumption, the 15th of August, so as to catch 
the stream of pilgrims which flowed back from 
Canterbury after the Feast of the Translation in 
July, and the seven days' fair there, that went by 
the name of Becket's fair. Fairs soon came to 
be held not only at towns such as Farnham, 
Guildford, and Shalford, but at the small villages 
along the Pilgrims' Road. There was one in the 
churchyard at Puttenham, and another at Wan- 
borough, a church on the northern side of the 
hill, which belonged to Waverley Abbey, where 
the offerings made by the pilgrims formed part 
of the payments yearly received by the Abbot, 
while a third was held on St. Katharine's Hill 
during five days in September. 

Even the churches along the road often owed 
their existence to the Pilgrimage. The church 
of Seale was built early in the thirteenth century 
by the Abbots of Waverley, and that of Wan- 



6o ALTON TO COMPTON 

borough was rebuilt by the same Abbots, and 
was again allowed to fall into decay when the 
days of pilgrimages were over. Both the sister 
chapels of St. Katharine and St. Martha, we shall 
see, owed their restoration to the pilgrims* 
passage, and many more along the Way were 
either raised in honour of St. Thomas, or else 
adorned with frescoes and altar-pieces of the 
Martyrdom. 

Along this pleasant Surrey hill-side the old 
Canterbury pilgrims journeyed, going from church 
to church, from shrine to shrine, and more 
especially if their pilgrimage took place in summer, 
enjoying the sweet country air and leafy shades 
of this quiet woodland region. They lingered, 
we may well believe, at the village fairs, and 
stopped at every town to see the sights and hear 
the news ; for the pilgrim of mediaeval days was, 
as Dean Stanley reminds us, a traveller with the 
same adventures, stories, pleasures, pains, as the 
traveller of our own times, and men of every type 
and class set out on pilgrimages much as tourists 
to-day start on a foreign trip. Some, no doubt, 
undertook the journey from devotion, and more in 



MOTLEY THRONGS 6l 

a vague hope of reaping some profit, both material 
and spiritual, from a visit to the shrine of the 
all-powerful Saint, while a thousand other motives 
— curiosity, love of change and adventure, the 
pleasure of a journey — prompted the crowds who 
thronged the road at certain seasons of the year. 
Chaucer's company of pilgrims we know was a 
motley crew, and included men and women whose 
characters were as varied as their rank and trade. 
With them came a throng of jugglers and story- 
tellers and minstrels, who beguiled the way with 
music and laughter as they rode or walked along, 
so that " every town they came through, what 
with the noise of their singing, and with the 
sound of their piping, and with the jangling of 
their Canterbury bells, and with the barking of 
the dogs after them, they made more noise than 
if the king came there with all his clarions." In 
their train, too, a crowd of idle folk, of roving 
pedlars and begging friars and lazy tramps, who 
were glad of any excuse to beg a crust or coin. 

The presence of these last was by no means 
always welcome at the inns and religious houses 
on the road, where doubtful characters often 



62 ALTON TO COMPTON 

craved admittance, knowing that if the hand of 
justice overtook them they could always find 
refuge in one of those churches where the rights 
of sanctuary were so resolutely claimed and so 
jealously defended by the Abbot of Waverley or 
the Prior of Newark. 







COMPTON VILLAGE. 



CHAPTER IV 



COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

Following the Pilgrims' Way along the southern 
slopes of the Hog's Back, we cross Puttenham 
Heath, and reach the pretty little village of 
Compton. Here, nestling under the downs, a 
few hundred yards from the track, is a beautiful 
old twelfth-century church, which was there 
before the days of St. Thomas. This ancient 
structure, dedicated to St. Nicholas, still retains 
some good stained glass and boasts a unique 
feature in the shape of a double-storied chancel. 
The east end of the church is crossed by a low 

63 



64 COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

semicircular arch enriched with Norman zigzag 
moulding, and surmounted by a rude screen, 
which is said to be the oldest piece of woodwork 
in England. Both the upper and the lower 
sanctuaries have piscinas, and there is an Early- 
English one in the south aisle. The massive 
bases of the chalk pillars, the altar-tomb north 
of the chancel — probably an Eastern sepulchre — 
and a hagioscope now blocked up, all deserve 
attention, as well as the fine Jacobean pulpit and 
chancel screen, which is now placed under the 
tower arch. 

A mile to the west of this singularly interesting 
church is Loseley, the historic mansion of the 
More and Molyneux family. This manor was 
Crown property in the reign of Edward the 
Confessor, and is described in Domesday Book 
as the property of the Norman Roger de Mont- 
gomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, on whom it was 
bestowed by the Conqueror. After passing 
through many hands it was finally bought from 
the Earl of Gloucester, early in the sixteenth 
century, by Sir Christopher More, whose son. 
Sir William, built the present mansion. The 



LOSELEY 



65 




COMPTON CHURCH. 



grand old house with its grey-stone gables and 
muUioned windows is a perfect specimen of 
Elizabethan architecture. The broad grass terrace 
along the edge of the moat, the yew hedges with 
their glossy hues of green and purple, the old- 
fashioned borders full of bright flowers, and the 
low pigeon-houses standing at each angle, all 
remain as they were in the reign of James L, 
5 



66 COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

and agree well with Lord Bacon's idea of what 
a pleasance ought to be. Within, the walls are 
wainscoted with oak panelling throughout, and 
the ceilings and mantelpieces are richly decorated. 
The cross and mulberry tree of the Mores, with 
their mottoes, may still be seen in the stained- 
glass oriel of the great hall, and on the cornices 
of the drawing-room. Here too is a fine mantel- 
piece, carved in white chalk, which is said to 
have been designed by Hans Holbein. Many 
are the royal visitors who have left memorials of 
their presence at Loseley. Queen Elizabeth had 
an especial affection for the place, and was here 
three times. The cushioned seats of two gilt 
chairs were worked by her needle, and there is 
a painted panel bearing the quaint device of a 
flower-pot with the red and white roses of York 
and Lancaster, and the fleur-de-lis, with the words 
Rosa Electa and Felicior Phocnice, a pretty 
conceit which would not fail to find favour in the 
eyes of the Virgin Queen. The hall contains 
portraits of James L and his wife Anne of Den- 
mark, painted by Mytens in honour of a visit 
which they paid to Loseley in the first year of 



LOSELEY 67 

this monarch's reign ; and the ceiling of his 
Majesty's bedroom is elaborately patterned over 
with stucco reliefs of Tudor roses and lilies and 
thistles. A likeness of Anne Boleyn, and several 
fine portraits of members of the More family, also 
adorn the walls, and there is a beautiful little 
picture of the boy-king, Edward VL, wearing an 
embroidered crimson doublet and jewelled cap 
and feather, painted by some clever pupil of 
Holbein in 1547. This portrait was sent in 1890 
to the Tudor Exhibition, which also contained 
many historical documents relating to different 
personages of this royal line, preserved among 
the Loseley manuscripts. There are warrants 
signed by Edward VI., the Lord Protector, by 
Queen Elizabeth and the Lord of her Council, 
including Hatton the Lord Chancellor, Cecil, Lord 
Burghley, Lord Effingham, and Lord Derby. 
There is one of 1540, signed by Henry VHL, 
commanding Christopher More, Sheriff of the 
County of Sussex, to deliver certain goods forfeited 
to the crown to " Katheryn Howarde, one of our 
queue's maidens," and another, signed by 
Elizabeth in the first year of her reign, com- 



68 COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

manding William More to raise and equip one 
hundred able men, for the defence of England 
against foreign invasion. There is also a curious 
sumptuary proclamation by Queen Elizabeth 
respecting the dress and ornaments of women, 
and, what is still more rare and interesting, a 
warrant from Lady Jane Grey, dated July 19, I. 
Jane, and signed '* Jane the Queue." Among the 
more private and personal papers is an amusing 
letter from Robert Home, Bishop of Winchester, 
giving Mr. More, of Loseley, advice as to stocking 
the new pond with the best kind of carp, " thes 
be of a little heade, broade side and not long ; 
soche as be great headed and longe, made after 
the fashion of an herring, are not good, neither 
will ever be." Another from Bishop Day informs 
Sir William More, in 1596, that he intends to 
fish the little pond at Frensham ; while one to the 
same gentleman from Alexander Nowell, Dean 
of St. Paul's, thanks him for his exertions to 
recover a stolen nag on his behalf. The treasures 
of Loseley, in fact, are as inexhaustible as its 
beauty. 

A pleasant walk through the forest trees and 



ST. katherine's chapel 69 

grassy glades of the park leads us back to 
Compton village and the green lanes through 
which the Pilgrims' Way now wanders. Skirting 
the grounds of Monk's Hatch, with their pine- 
groves and rose-gardens lying under the chalk 
hanger, the old road passes close to Limnerslease, 
the Surrey home of George Frederic Watts. 
To-day thousands of pilgrims from all parts of 
the world seek out this sylvan retreat where the 
great master spent his last years, and visit the 
treasures of art which adorn its galleries, and 
the fair chapel and cloister that mark the painter's 
grave. 

From Compton a path known as " Sandy 
Lane " leads over the hill past Braboeuf Manor, 
and the site of the old roadside shrine of Littleton 
Cross, and comes out on the open down, close 
to the chapel of St. Katherine. This now ruined 
shrine, which stands on a steep bank near the 
road, was rebuilt on the site of a still older one 
in 131 7, by Richard de Wauncey, Rector of St. 
Nicholas, Guildford, and was much frequented 
by pilgrims to Canterbury. So valuable were 
the revenues derived by the parson from their 
5* 



70 



COMPTON TO SHALFORD 




ST. KATHERINES, GUILDFORD. 



offerings that the original grant made to Richard 
de Wauncey was disputed, and for some years 
the Rector of St. Mary stepped into his rights. 
But in 1329 the Rector of St. Nicholas succeeded 
in ousting his rival, and the chapel was re-conse- 
crated and attached to the parish of St. Nicholas. 
An old legend ascribes the building of this shrine 
and of the chapel on St. Martha's Hill to two 
giant sisters of primaeval days, who raised the 
walls with their own hands and flung their 



ST. KATHERINE S CHAPEL 



71 




•/■/"■ f! ■'sfMartks'.'; M ', V, ■" 






-.-■ "l/i I .1, — r— III* •/>--' '/^^ * 



ST. MARTHA S CHAPEL. 



enormous hammer backwards and forwards from 
one hill to the other. Unlike its more fortunate 
sister-shrine, St. Katherine's chapel has long been 
roofless and dismantled, but it still forms a very- 
picturesque object in the landscape, and the 
pointed arches of its broken windows frame in 
lovely views of the green meadows of the winding 



72 COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

Wey, with the castle and churches of Guildford 
at our feet, and the hills and commons stretching 
far away, to the blue ridge of Hindhead. 

The ancient city of Guildford owes its name 
and much of its historic renown to its situation 
on the chief ford of the river Wey, which here 
makes a break in the ridge of chalk downs run- 
ning across Surrey. Guildford is mentioned in 
his will by King Alfred, who left it to his nephew 
Ethelwold, and became memorable as the spot 
where another Alfred, the son of Knut and Emma, 
was treacherously seized and murdered by Earl 
Godwin, who, standing on the eastern slope of 
the Hog's Back above the city, bade the young 
prince look back and see how large a kingdom 
would be his. For seven centuries, from the 
days of the Saxon kings to those of the Stuarts, 
Guildford remained Crown property, and the 
Norman keep which still towers grandly above 
the city was long a royal palace. The strength 
of the castle and importance of the position made 
it famous in the wars of the barons, and the 
Waverley annalist records its surrender to 
Louis VIII. of France, when he marched against 




5=>. I 



'•^'T^ !U» 



>v, M' 



THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD, 



GUILDFORD 



73 






4^ 







J.I ■■ ,//7' I'll U •■ 



Tn« Hog 5 B«ck M 



THE hog's back. 

King John from Sandwich Haven to Winchester. 
To-day the picturesqueness of the streets, the 
gabled roofs and panelled houses, and even more 
the situation of the town in the heart of this fair 
district, attract many artists, and make it a 
favourite centre for tourists. 

In mediaeval times Guildford was a convenient 
halting-place for pilgrims on their way from the 
south and west of England to the shrine of 
St. Thomas. Many of these, however, as the 
shrewd parson of St. Nicholas saw, when he 



74 COMPTON TO SHALFORD 

thought it worth his while to buy the freehold 
of the site on which St. Katherine's chapel stood, 
would push on and cross the river by the ferry 
at the foot of the hill, which still bears the name 
of the Pilgrims' Ferry. On landing they found 
themselves in the parish of Shalford, in the 
meadows where the great fair was held each year 
in August. When the original charter was 
granted by King John, the fair took place in the 
churchyard, but soon the concourse of people 
became so great that it spread into the fields 
along the river, and covered as much as one 
hundred and forty acres of ground. Shalford 
Fair seems, in fact, to have been the most im- 
portant one in this part of Surrey, and no doubt 
owed its existence to the passage of the Canter- 
bury pilgrims. 




ST. Martha's from the hog's back. 



CHAPTER V 



SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

The line of the Pilgrims' Way may be clearly 
followed from the banks of the Wey up the hill. 
It goes through Shalford Park, up Ciderhouse 
Lane, where the ancient Pesthouse or refuge for 
sick pilgrims and travellers, now called Cider- 
house Cottage, is still standing, and leads through 
the Chantrey Woods straight to St. Martha's 
Chapel. 

The district through which it takes us is one 

75 



76 SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

of the wildest and loveliest parts of Surrey. 
"Very few prettier rides in England," remarks 
Cobbett, who repeatedly travelled along this track, 
and the beauty of the views all along its course 
will more than repay the traveller who makes 
his way on foot over the hills from Guildford to 
Dorking. One of the most extensive is to be 
had from St. Martha's Hill, where the prospect 
ranges in one direction over South Leith Hill 
and the South Downs far away to the Weald of 
Sussex and the well-known clump of Chancton- 
bury Ring ; and on the other over the commons 
and moors to the crests of Hindhead and the 
Hog's Back ; while looking northward we have 
a wide view over the Surrey plains and the valley 
of the Thames, and Windsor Castle and the 
dome of St. Paul's may be distinguished on clear 
days. 

The ancient chapel on the summit, which gives 
its name to St. Martha's Hill, was originally built 
in memory of certain Christians who suffered 
martyrdom on the spot, and was formerly dedi- 
cated to all holy martyrs, while the hill itself was 
known as the Martyrs' Hill, of which, as Grose 



ST. MARTHA S CHAPEL 77 

remarks,^ "the present name is supposed to be 
a corruption." In the twelfth century it became 
peculiarly associated with the Canterbury pilgrims, 
and a new chancel was built for their use, and 
consecrated to St. Thomas a Becket in the year 
1 1 86. In 1262 this chapel was attached to the 
Priory of Newark, an Augustinian convent near 
Ripley, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury 
by Ruald de Calva in the reign of Richard 
Coeur de Lion. The Prior already owned 
most of the hill-side, and the names of Farthing 
Copse and Halfpenny Lane, through which the 
pilgrims passed on their way to St. Martha's 
Chapel, remind us of the tolls which he levied 
from all who travelled along the road. We 
have already seen how in the earlier portions 
of the Way the Prior of Newark disputed the 
rights of the Abbot of Waverley. Here he 
reigned supreme. A priest from Newark Priory 
served St. Martha's Chapel, and is said to have 
lived at Tyting's Farm, an old gabled house with 
the remains of a small oratory close to the Pil- 
grims' Way. In latter days a colony of monks 

^ Grose, " Antiquities of England and Wales," v. no. 



78 SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

from Newark settled at Chilworth, where the 
present manor-house contains fragments of 
monastic building, and the fishponds of the friars 
may still be seen near the terraced gardens. 
During the troubled times of the Wars of the 
Roses the Chapel of St. Martha fell into ruins, 
and owed its restoration to Bishop William of 
Waynflete, who in 1463 granted forty days' in- 
dulgence to all pilgrims who should visit the 
shrine and there repeat a Pater Noster, an Ave, 
and a Credo, or contribute to its repair. After 
the dissolution of the monasteries both Newark 
Priory and St. Martha's shrine fell into ruins, 
and the chapel was only restored of late years. 
At Chilworth, south of St. Martha's Hill, lies the 
once fair valley which has been defaced by the 
powder-mills, first established there three centuries 
ago by an ancestor of John Evelyn, and now 
worked by steam. This is the place which Cob- 
bett denounces in his ** Rural Rides " with a 
vigour and eloquence worthy of Mr. Ruskin 
himself : 

" This valley, which seems to have been created 
by a bountiful Providence as one of the choicest 



GUNPOWDER AND BANKNOTES 79 

retreats of man, which seems formed for a scene 
of innocence and happiness, has been by ungrate- 
ful man so perverted as to make it instrumental 
in effecting two of the most damnable of pur- 
poses, in carrying into execution two of the most 
damnable inventions that ever sprang from the 
mind of man under the influence of the devil ! 
namely, the making of gunpowder and of bank- 
notes ! Here, in this tranquil spot, where the 
nightingales are to be heard earlier and later in 
the year than in any other part of England ; 
where the first budding of the buds is seen in 
spring ; where no rigour of season can ever be 
felt; where everything seems formed for precluding 
the very thought of wickedness ; here has the 
devil fixed on as one of the seats of this grand 
manufactory ; and perverse and ungrateful man 
not only lends his aid, but lends it cheerfully. 
To think that the springs which God has com- 
manded to flow from the sides of these happy 
hills for the comfort and delight of man — to 
think that these springs should be perverted 
into means of spreading misery over a whole 
nation ! " 



8o SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

One of these " inventions of the devil " has 
been removed. The paper-mills which made the 
bank-notes in Cobbett's time are silent now, but 
the powder-mills are in full activity, and Chil worth, 
with its coal-stores and railway-crossing, has a 
blackened and desolate look which not all the 
natural beauties of its surroundings can dispel. 

Once more upon the hills, we can follow the 
line of yews which are seen at intervals along 
the ridge from St. Martha's Chapel by Weston 
Wood and the back of Albury Park, turning a 
few steps out of our path to visit Newland's 
Corner, the highest point of Albury Downs, and 
one of the most beautiful spots in the whole of 
Surrey. The view is as extensive as that from 
St. Martha's Hill, and is even more varied and 
picturesque. Over broken ridges of heathery 
down and gently swelling slopes, clad with beech 
and oak woods, we look across to Ewhurst Mill, 
a conspicuous landmark in all this country, and 
farther westward to the towers of Charterhouse 
and the distant heights of Hindhead and Black- 
down ; while immediately in front, across the 
wooded valley, rises St. Martha's Hill, crowned 



82 SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

by its ancient chapel. Here we can watch the 
changes of sun and shower over the wide expanse 
of level country, and see the long range of far 
hills veiled in the thin blue mists of morning, or 
turning purple under the gold of the evening sky. 
Some of the oldest and finest yew trees in all 
Surrey are close to Newland's Corner — the ancient 
yew grove there is mentioned in Domesday — and 
their dark foliage offers a fine contrast to the 
bright tints of the neighbouring woods and to 
the snowy masses of blossom which in early 
summer clothe the gnarled old hawthorn trees 
that are studded over the hill-side. We can 
follow the track over the springy turf of the open 
downs and up glades thick with bracken, till it 
becomes choked with bushes and brambles, and 
finally loses itself in the woods of Albury. 

Here, in the middle of the Duke of North- 
umberland's park, is the deep glen, surrounded 
by wooded heights, known as the Silent Pool. 
A dark tale, which Martin Tupper has made the 
subject of his " Stephen Langton," belongs to 
this lonely spot. King John, tradition says, 
loved a fair woodman's daughter who lived here, 



ALBURY 83 

and surprised her in the act of bathing in the 
pool. The frightened girl let loose the branch 
by which she held, and was drowned in the 
water ; and her brother, a goat-herd, who at the 
sound of her scream had rushed in after her, 
shared the same fate. And still, the legend goes, 
at midnight you may see a black-haired maiden 
clasping her arms round her brother in his cow- 
hide tunic under the clear rippling surface of the 
Silent Pool. 

A little farther on is the old church of Albury 
— Eldeburie, mentioned in Domesday, and sup- 
posed to be the most ancient in Surrey. The 
low tower, with its narrow two-light windows, 
probably dates back to very early Norman times, 
but the rest of the church is considerably 
later. The south chapel was richly decorated by 
Mr. Drummond, who bought the place in 1819, 
and is now used as a mortuary chapel for his 
family. Albury formerly belonged to the Dukes 
of Norfolk. The gardens were originally laid 
out by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the 
accomplished collector of the Arundel marbles, 
and whose fine portrait by Vandyck was exhibited 



84 SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

at Burlington House in the winter of 1891. His 
friend and neighbour, Mr. Evelyn, helped him 
with his advice and taste, and designed the grotto 
under the hill, which still remains. " Such a 
Pausilippe," remarks the author of " The Sylva," 
" is nowhere in England besides." But the great 
ornament of Albury is the famous yew hedge, 
about ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long, 
probably the finest of its kind in England. So 
thick are the upper branches of the yew trees 
that, as William Cobbett writes, when he visited 
Albury in Mr. Drummond's time, they kept out 
both the rain and sun, and alike in summer and 
winter afford "a most delightful walk." The 
grand terrace under the hill, ** thirty or forty feet 
wide, and a quarter of a mile long, of the finest 
green-sward, and as level as a die," particularly 
delighted him ; and the careful way in which the 
fruit trees were protected from the wind, and 
the springs along the hill-side collected to water 
the garden, gratified his practical mind. " Take 
it altogether," he goes on, "this certainly is the 
prettiest garden that I ever beheld. There was 
taste and sound judgment at every step in the 










Albury Old Oiurcll M 






ALBURY OLD CHURCH. 



6* 



86 SHALFORD TO ALBURY 

laying out of this place. Everywhere utility 
and convenience is combined with beauty. The 
terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort that 
I ever saw, and the whole thing altogether is a 
great compliment to the taste of the times in 
which it was formed." The honest old reformer's 
satisfaction in these gardens was increased by 
the reflection that the owner was worthy of his 
estate, seeing that he was famed for his justice 
and kindness towards the labouring classes — 
" who, God knows, have very few friends amongst 
the rich ; " and adds, that he for one has no 
sympathy with " the fools " who want a revolu- 
tion for the purpose of getting hold of other 
people's property. "There are others who like 
pretty gardens as well as I, and if the question 
were to be decided according to the laws of the 
strongest, or, as the French call it, droit du plus 
fort, my chance would be but a very poor one." 







"m^MlU Goms>.alI. 






THE MILL, GOMSHALL. 



CHAPTER VI 



SHERE TO REIGATE 



The Pilgrims' Way ran through Albury Park, 
passing close to the old church and under the 
famous yew hedge, and crossed the clear trout 
stream of the Tillingbourne by a ford still known 
as *' Chantry Ford." Here a noble avenue of 
lime trees brings us to Shere church, a building 
as remarkable for the beauty of its situation as 
for its architectural interest. The lovely Early 

87 



88 SHERE TO REIGATE 

English doorway, the heavy transitional arches 
of the nave and the fourteenth-century chancel 
are still unhurt, and among the fragments of old 
glass we recognise the flax-breaker, which was 
the crest of the Brays, one of the oldest families 
in the county, who are, we rejoice to think, still 
represented here. Shere itself is one of the most 
charming villages in all this lovely neighbourhood. 
For many years now it has been a favourite resort 
of artistic and literary men, who find endless 
delight in the quiet beauty of the surrounding 
country. Subjects for pen and pencil abound 
in all directions ; quaint old timbered houses, 
picturesque water-mills and barns, deep ferny 
lanes shaded by overhanging trees, and exquisite 
glimpses of heather-clad downs meet us at every 
turn. Fair as the scene is, travellers are seldom 
seen in these hilly regions ; and so complete is 
the stillness, so pure the mountain air, that we 
might almost fancy ourselves in the heart of the 
Highlands, instead of thirty miles from town. 
Here it was, in the midst of the wild scenery 
of these Surrey Hills, that a sudden end closed 
the life of a great prelate of our own days. 



90 SHERE TO REIGATE 

Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. A 
granite cross at Evershed's Rough, just below 
Lord Farrer's house at Abinger Hall, now marks 
the spot where his horse stumbled and fell as 
he rode down the hill towards Holmbury on 
that summer afternoon. 

About a mile beyond Abinger we reach the 
home of John Evelyn, and see the grey tower of 
the church where he is buried. This is Wotton 
— the town of the woods, as he loved to call it — 
" sweetly environed " with ** venerable woods and 
delicious streams ; " Wotton where, after all his 
wanderings and all the turmoil of those troublous 
times, Evelyn found a peaceful haven wherein to 
end his days. There are the terraces, the " foun- 
tains and groves," in which he took delight ; 
there, too, are the pine-woods which he planted, 
not only for ornament, and because they "create 
a perpetual spring," but because he held the air to 
be improved by their '* odoriferous and balsamical 
emissions." Not only these trees, but the oak 
and ash, and all the different species which he 
studied so closely and has written about so well, 
were dear to him as his own children, and he 



WOTTON 



91 







CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.^ 

speaks in pathetic language of the violent storm 
which blew down two thousand of his finest trees 
in a single night, and almost within sight of his 
dwelling, and left Wotton, " now no more Wood- 
tonn, stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to 
own its name. Methinks that I still hear, and 
I am sure that I feel, the dismal groans of our 



^ Meredith's novel, " Diana of the Crossways," takes its name 
from this farm. 



92 SHERE TO REIGATE 

forests, when that late dreadful hurricane, happen- 
ing on the 26th of November, 1703, subverted so 
many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating the 
trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole 
regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the 
conqueror, and crushing all that grew beneath 
them." Evelyn's descendants have bestowed the 
same care on the woods and plantations, and in 
spite of the havoc wrought by wind and tempest, 
Wotton is still remarkable for the beauty of its 
forest-trees and masses of flowering rhododen- 
drons. 

\The red-brick house has been a good deal 
altered during the present century, but is still full 
of memorials of Evelyn. His portrait, and that 
of his wife and father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, 
are there, and that of his "angelic friend," Mistress 
Blagge, the wife of Godolphin, whose beautiful 
memory he has enshrined in the pages of the 
little volume that bears her name. The drawings 
which he made on his foreign travels are there 
too ; and better still, the books in which he took 
such pride and pleasure, carefully bound, bearing 
on their backs a device and motto which he chose, 




m.4 . 

r' I- -- »- 



I. 



v'iif *5 



it 






94 SHERE TO REIGATE 

a spray of oak, palm, and olive entwined together, 
with the words, " Omnia explorate ; meliora 
retinete." But the most precious relic of all is 
the Prayer Book used by Charles I. on the morn- 
ing of his execution. It was saved from destruc- 
tion by a devoted loyalist, Isaac Herault, brother 
of a Walloon minister in London, and afterwards 
given by him to Evelyn's father-in-law, Sir 
Richard Browne. The fly-leaf bears a Latin 
inscription with this note : — This is the Booke 
which Charles the First, Martyr beatus, did use 
upon the Scaffold, xxx Jan., 1649, being the Day 
of his glorious martyrdom." 

The exact course of the Pilgrims' Way here 
is uncertain. After leaving Shere church it dis- 
appears, and we must climb a steep lane past 
Gomshall station, to find the track again on 
Hackhurst Downs. The line of yews is to be 
seen at intervals all along these downs, and as we 
descend into the valley of the Mole, opposite the 
heights of Box Hill, we pass four venerable yew 
trees standing in a field by themselves. One of 
the group was struck by lightning many years 
ago, but still stretches its gaunt, withered arms 



DORKING 



95 




BotH.lU Do'Uing CViuTcVi Sp 



BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE. 

against the sky, like some weather-beaten sign- 
post marking the way to Canterbury. 

The town of Dorking lies in the break here 
made in the chalk hills by the passage of the 
river Mole ; Milton's " sullen Mole that windeth 
underground," or, as Spenser sings in his " Faerie 
Queen," — 

" Mole, that like a mousling mole doth make 
His way still underground, till Thames he overtake." 



96 



SHERE TO REIGATE 




■Hia VVKUe HoTse. Dotkvng 



THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING. 

The Mole owes its fame to the fact that it is 
so seldom seen, and several of the swallows or 
gullies into which it disappears at intervals along 
its chalky bed are at Burford, close to Dorking. 
The ponds which supplied the perch for that 
■water-sousie which Dutch merchants came to 
eat at Dorking, are still to be seen in the fields 
under Redhill, and near them many an old tim- 
bered house and mill-wheel well worth painting. 



DORKING 



97 







^^-^ 



BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST. 



To-day Dorking is a quiet, sleepy little place, but 
its situation on the Stane Street, the great Roman 
road from Chichester to London, formerly made 
it a centre of considerable importance, and the 
size and excellence of the old-fashioned inns still 
bear witness to its departed grandeur. Whether, 
as seems most probable, the old road ran under 
the wall of Denbies Park, and across the gap now 
made by the Dorking lime works, or whether, as 
the Ordnance map indicates, it crossed the breezy 
7 



98 SHERE TO REIGATE 

heights of Ranmore Common, pilgrims to Canter- 
bury certainly crossed the Mole at Burford 
Bridge about half a mile from the town. The 
remains of an ancient shrine known as the Pil- 
grims' Chapel are still shown in Westhumble 
Lane. The path itself bears the name of Pater- 
noster Lane, and the fields on either side are 
called the Pray Meadows. From this point the 
path runs along under Boxhill, the steep down 
that rises abruptly on the eastern side of Dorking, 
and takes its name from the box-trees which here 
spring up so plentifully in the smooth green turf 
above the chalk. Boxhill is, we all know, one of 
the chief attractions which Dorking offers to 
Londoners. The other is to be found in the fine 
parks of Deepdene and Betchworth, immediately 
adjoining the town. The famous gardens and 
art collections of Deepdene, and the noble lime 
avenue of Betchworth, which now forms part of 
the same estate, have often been visited and de- 
scribed. The house at Deepdene is now closed 
to the public, but the traveller can still stroll 
under the grand old trees on the river bank, 
and enjoy a wealthy variety of forest scenery 



ROMAN REMAINS 99 

almost unrivalled in England. A picturesque 
bridge over the Mole leads back to the downs 
on the opposite side of the valley, where the old 
track pursues its way along the lower slope of 
the hills, often wending its course through 
ploughed fields and tangled thickets and dis- 
appearing altogether in places where chalk quarries 
and lime works have cut away the face of the 
down. But on the whole the line of yews which 
mark the road is more regular between Dorking 
and Reigate than in its earlier course, and at 
Buckland, a village two miles west of Reigate, a 
whole procession of these trees descends into the 
valley. 

All this part of the road is rich in Roman 
remains. Of these one of the most interesting 
was the building discovered in 1875, at Colley 
Farm, in the parish of Reigate, just south of the 
Way. Not only were several cinerary urns and 
fragments of Roman pottery dug up, but the 
walls of a Roman building were found under 
those of the present farmhouse. Some twenty 
years ago a similar building was discovered at 
Abinger, also in the immediate vicinity of the 



lOO 



SHERE TO REIGATE 




H 'Kv; 



ON "THE WAY ABOVE BETCHWORTH. 



track, but unfortunately it was completely de- 
stroyed in the absence of the owner, Sir Thomas 
Farrer. Another Roman house came to light in 
1 8 13, at Bletchingley, and one chamber, which 
appeared to be a hypocaust, was excavated at the 
time. Lastly, considerable Roman remains have 
been discovered and carefully excavated by Mr. 
Leveson-Gower in the park at Titsey. Of these 
the most important are a Roman villa, which was 



JOHN BUNYAN lOI 

thoroughly excavated in 1864, together with a 
group of larger buildings, apparently the farm 
belonging to the ancient house. These are only 
a few of the principal links in the chain of 
Roman buildings which lie along the course of 
this ancient trackway, and which all help to 
prove its importance as a thoroughfare at the 
time of the Roman occupation. 

Another point of interest regarding this part 
of the Pilgrims' Way is its connection with John 
Bunyan. When his peculiar opinions and open- 
air preachings had brought him into trouble with 
the authorities, he came to hide in these Surrey 
hills, and earned his living for some time as a 
travelling tinker. Two houses, one at Horn 
Hatch, on Shalford Common, the other at Quarry 
Hill, in Guildford, are still pointed out as having 
been inhabited by him at this time ; and a recent 
writer ^ has suggested that in all probability the 
recollections of Pilgrimage days, then fresh in 
the minds of the people, first gave him the idea 

1 Captain E. Renouard James, whose " Notes on the Pilgrims' Way 
in West Surrey " will be found to supply much valuable local informa- 
tion. (London, Edward Stanford, 187 1.) 



I02 SHERE TO REIGATE 

of his " Pilgrim's Progress." Certainly more than 
one incident in the history of the road bears a 
close resemblance to the tale of Christian's ad- 
ventures. Thus, for instance, the swampy marshes 
at Shalford may have been the Slough of Despond, 
the blue Surrey hills seen from the distance may 
well have seemed to him the Delectable Moun- 
tains, and the name of Doubting Castle actually 
exists at a point of the road near Box Hill. 
Lastly, the great fair at Shalford corresponds 
exactly w^ith Bunyan's description of Vanity Fair, 
no newly erected business, but " a thing of ancient 
standing," where " the ware of Rome and her 
merchandise is greatly promoted . . . only our 
English nation have taken a dislike thereat." 
In the days when Bunyan wrote, the annual fair 
had degenerated into a lawless and noisy assembly, 
where little trade was done, and much drinking 
and fighting and rude horseplay went on, as he 
may have found to his cost. The wares of Rome, 
in fact, were commodities no longer in fashion, 
and soon the fair itself came to an end and passed 
away, like so many other things that had been 
called into being by the Canterbury Pilgrimage. 







Windmill on H«igatiLCo« 



WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON. 



CHAPTER VII 

REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

Although the town of Reigate lies in the valley, 
it certainly takes its name from the Pilgrims' 
Road to Canterbury. In Domesday it is called 
Cherchfelle, and it is not till the latter part 
of the twelfth century that the comparatively 
modern name of Rigegate, the Ridge Road, was 
applied, first of all to the upper part of the parish, 
and eventually to the whole town. In those days 
a chapel dedicated to the memory of the blessed 

103 



I04 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

martyr, St. Thomas, stood at the east end of the 
long street, on a site now occupied by a market- 
house, built early in the last century, and part 
of the ancient foundations of this pilgrimage 
shrine were brought to light when the adjoining 
prison was enlarged some eighty or ninety years 
back. Another chapel, dedicated to St. Laurence 
the Martyr, stood farther down the street ; and a 
third, the Chapel of Holy Cross, belonged to the 
Augustine Canons of the Priory founded by 
William of Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, in the 
thirteenth century. In Saxon days Reigate, or 
Holm Castle, as it was then termed, from its 
situation at the head of the valley of Holmesdale, 
was an important stronghold, and the vigour and 
persistence with which the incursions of the 
Danes were repelled by the inhabitants of this 
district gave rise to the rhyme quoted by 
Camden — 

" The Vale of Holmesdale 
Never wonne, ne never shall." 

At the Conquest the manor was granted to 
William of Warrenne, and from that time the 



REIGATE PRIORY 



105 




REIGATE COMMON. 



castle became the most powerful fortress of the 
mighty Earls of Surrey. In the days of John it 
shared the fate of Guildford Castle, and was one 
of the strongholds which opened its gates to 
Louis VIII., King of France, on his march from 
the Kentish Coast to Winchester. The Fitzalans 
succeeded the Warrennes in the possession of 
Reigate, and in the reign of Edward VI., both 
the castle and the Priory were granted to the 
Howards of Effingham. Queen Elizabeth's 
Lord High Admiral, the victor of the Invincible 
Armada, lies buried in the vault under the 



Io6 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

chancel of Reigate Church. In Stuart times the 
castle gradually fell into decay, until it was finally 
destroyed by order of Parliament, during the 
Civil War, lest it should fall into the King's 
hands. Now only the mound of the ancient keep 
remains, and some spacious subterranean chambers 
which may have served as cellars or dungeons in 
Norman times. The Priory has also been re- 
placed by a modern house, and is the property 
of Lady Henry Somerset, the representative of 
the Earl Somers, to whom William III. granted 
Reigate in 1697. 

Reigate is frequently mentioned in Cobbett's 
" Rural Rides," and it was the sight of the 
Priory that set him moralising over monasteries 
and asking himself if, instead of being, as we 
take it for granted, bad things, they were not, 
after all, better \\v2iW poor-rates, and if the monks 
and nuns, who fed the poor, were not more to be 
commended than the rich pensioners of the State, 
^\io feed ttpo7t the poor. 

Close to this ancient foundation is the hilly 
common known as Reigate Park, a favourite haunt 
with artists, who find endless subjects in the 



REIGATE PARK I07 

fern-grown dells and romantic hollows, the clumps 
of thorn-trees with their gnarled stems and 
spreading boughs, their wealth of wild flowers and 
berries. The views over Reigate itself and the 
Priory grounds on one side, and over the Sussex 
Weald on the other, are very charming ; but a still 
finer prospect awaits us on the North Downs on 
the opposite side of the valley, where the Pilgrims' 
Road goes on its course. The best way is to 
climb Reigate Hill as far as the suspension 
bridge, and follow a path cut in the chalk to the 
summit of the ridge. It leads through a beech- 
wood on to the open downs, where, if the day 
is clear, one of the finest views in the whole 
of England — in the whole world, says Cobbett — 
breaks upon us. The Weald of Surrey and of 
Sussex, from the borders of Hampshire to the 
ridge of East Grinstead, and Crowborough Beacon, 
near Tunbridge Wells, lies spread out at our feet. 
Eastward, the eye ranges over the Weald of Kent 
and the heights above Sevenoaks ; westward the 
purple ridge of Leith Hill and the familiar crest 
of Hindhead meet us ; and far away to the south 
are the Brighton downs and Chanctonbury Ring 



io8 



REIGATE TO CHEVENING 









^- 






Looi„„« E. t„„,y(^'^iu„ 









LOOKING EAST FROM GATTON PARK. 

The line of yew trees appears again here, and 
after keeping along the top of the ridge for about 
a mile, the Pilgrims' Way enters Gatton Park, 
and passing through the woods near Lord Oxen- 
bridge's house, joins the avenue that leads to 
Merstham. Gatton itself, which, like Reigate, 
takes its name from the Pilgrims' Road — Saxon, 
Gatetun, the town of the road — was chiefly famous 
for the electoral privileges which it so long en- 



ROTTEN BOROUGHS IO9 

joyed. From the time of Henry VI. until the 
Reform Bill of 1832, this very small borough 
returned two members to Parliament. In the 
reign of Henry VHI. Sir Roger Copley is de- 
scribed as the burgess and sole inhabitant of the 
borough and town of Gatton, and for many years 
the constituency consisted of one person, the lord 
of the manor. 

At the beginning of the present century there 
were only eight houses in the whole parish, a 
fact which naturally roused the ire of William 
Cobbett. " Before you descend the hill to go 
into Reigate," he writes in one of his Rural Rides, 
*' you pass Gatton, which is a very rascally spot 
of earth." And when rainy weather detained him 
a whole day at Reigate, he moralises in this vein 
— " hi one rotten borough, one the most rotten 
too, and with another still more rotten up upon 
the hill, in Reigate and close by Gatton, how 
can I help reflecting, how can my mind be other- 
wise than filled with reflections on the marvellous 
deeds of the collective wisdom of the nation ? " 
These privileges doubled the value of the property, 
and when Lord Monson bought Gatton Park in 



no 



REIGATE TO CHEVENING 




GATTON TOWN HALL. 



1830, he paid a hundred thousand pounds for 
the place ; but the days of close boroughs were 
already numbered, and less than two years after- 
wards the Reform Bill deprived Gatton of both 
its members. The little town hall of Gatton, 
where the important ceremony of electing two 
representatives to serve in Parliament was per- 
formed, is still standing, an interesting relic of 
bygone days, on a mound in the park, almost 
hidden by large chestnut trees. 



GATTON HOUSE II I 

Gatton House is chiefly remarkable for the 
marble hall built by the same Lord Monson in 
imitation of the Orsini Chapel at Rome, and 
adorned with rich marbles which he had brought 
from Italy. The collection of pictures, formed 
by the same nobleman, contains several good 
Dutch and Italian pictures, including the " Vierge 
au bas-relief," a graceful Holy Family, which 
takes its name from a small carved tablet in the 
background. It was long held to be an early 
work by the great Leonardo da Vinci, and was 
purchased by Lord Monson of Mr. Woodburn 
for ^2^4,000, but is now generally attributed to 
his pupil, Cesare da Sesto. 

Like so many of the churches we have already 
mentioned, like Scale and Wanborough, and the 
chapels of St. Katherine and St. Martha, like 
the old church at Titsey and the present one at 
Chevening, Gatton was originally a Pilgrims' 
church. Now it has little that is old to show, 
for it was restored by Lord Monson in 1831, and 
adorned with a variety of treasures from all parts 
of the Continent. The stained glass comes from 
the monastery of Aerschot, near Louvain, the 



112 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

altar-rails from Tongres, the finely carved choir- 
stalls and canopies from Ghent, and the altar 
and pulpit from Nuremberg. Like most of the 
mediaeval wood-work and glass which has come 
to England from that " Quaint old town of toil 
and traffic, Quaint old town of art and song," 
these last are said to have been designed by 
the great master of the Franconian city, Albert 
Diirer. 

The Pilgrims' Way, as has been already said, 
runs through Gatton Park, and brings us out 
close to Merstham, and through lanes shaded 
with fine oaks and beeches we reach the pretty 
little village, with its old timbered cottages and 
still older church buried in the woods. Local 
writers of the last century frequently allude to 
the Pilgrims' Road as passing through this parish, 
although its exact course is not easy to trace. It 
seems, however, certain that the track passed 
near Lord Hylton's house, and south of the 
church, which stands close by. In mediaeval 
times, Merstham formed part of the vast estates 
held by the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, 
and was bestowed upon them by Athelstan, a son 



MERSTHAM 



113 







MerstliAm M 



MERSTHAM CHURCH. 



of Ethelred the Unready, in the tenth century. 
There was a church here at the time of the 
Norman Conquest, but the only portion of the 
present building dating from that period is a 
fine old square Norman font which, like several 
others in the neighbourhood, is of Sussex marble. 
Of later date, there is much that is extremely 
interesting. The tower and the west door are 
Early English, and the chancel arch is adorned 
8 



114 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

with curious acanthus-leaf mouldings, while the 
porch and chancel are Late Perpendicular. 

After passing Merstham Church the track is 
lost in a medley of roads and railway cuttings, 
but soon the line of yews appears again, climb- 
ing the crest of the hill, and can be followed 
for some distance along White Hill, or Quarry 
Hangers, as these downs are commonly called. 
The next object of interest which it passes is the 
War Camp, or Cardinal's Cap, as it is sometimes 
termed, an old British earthwork on the face of 
the chalk escarpment. Then the path turns into 
a wood, and we leave it to descend on Godstone. 
This is a fascinating spot for artists. The low 
irregular houses are grouped round a spacious 
green and goose-pond, shaded by fine horse- 
chestnuts, and there is a charming inn, the 
White Hart or Clayton Arms, with gabled front 
and large bay-windows of the good old-fashioned 
type. "A beautiful village," wrote Cobbett, 
ninety years ago, "chiefly of one street, with a 
fine large green before it, and with a pond in 
the green ; " and he goes on to speak of the 
neatness of the gardens and of the double violets. 



GODSTONE 



115 










THE WHITE HART, GODSTONE. 



" as large as small pinks," which grew in the 
garden of this same inn, and of which the 
landlady was good enough to give some roots. 
Happily for his peace of mind, he adds, " The 
vile rotten borough of Bletchingley, which lies 
under the downs close by, is out of sight." 

From Godstone it is a pleasant walk over 
the open commons, along the top of the ridge, 
looking over the Weald of Sussex and across 



ii6 



REIGATE TO CHEVENING 



k' .'^- 



.<,. --r'' 



C7 /^At'". 






llil '-li*^// "^■■ -r^ 

'IF'PIIV///,'// i,h--^>A3^ X'^i 





OxI-cc^ M 



OLD HOUSE IN OXTED. 



the valleys of Sevenoaks and Tunbridge to the 
Kentish hills. Once more we track the line of 
the Pilgrims' Way as it emerges from the woods 
above the Godstone quarries and, passing under 
Winder's Hill and by Marden Park, reaches a 
wood called Palmer's Wood. The name is sig- 
nificant, more especially since there is no record 
of any owner who bore that name. Here its 
course is very clearly defined, and when, in the 
autumn of 1890, pipes for carrying water out 
of the hill were laid down, a section of the old 



OXTED 



117 







OXTED CHURCH. 



paved road was cut across. A little farther on, 
at Limpsfield Lodge Farm, just on the edge of 
Titsey park, it formed the farm road till 1875. 
At this point the path was ten feet wide, and 
the original hedges remained. Before entering 
the park of Titsey, the way runs through part 
of Oxted parish, where a spring still bears the 
name of St. Thomas's Well, and then reaches 
Titsey Place. 

Few places in this part of Surrey are more 
attractive than this old home of the Greshams. 
The purity of the air, praised by Aubrey long 



Il8 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

ago for its sweet, delicate, and wholesome 
virtues, the health-giving breezes of the sur- 
rounding downs and commons, the natural love- 
liness of the place, and the taste with which 
the park and gardens have been laid out, all 
help to make Titsey a most delightful spot. Its 
beautiful woods stretch along the grassy slopes 
of Botley Hill, and the clump of trees on the 
heights known as Cold-harbour Green is 88 1 feet 
above the sea, and marks the loftiest point in the 
whole range of the North Downs. Wherever 
the eye rests, one ridge of wooded hill after the 
other seems to rise and melt away into the 
soft blue haze. Nor is there any lack of other 
attractions to invite the attention of scholar 
and antiquary. The place is full of historic 
associations. A whole wealth of antiquities, 
coins, urns, and pottery, have been dug up in 
the park, and some remains of Roman buildings 
were discovered there a few years ago, close to 
the Pilgrims' Way. After the conquest Titsey 
was given to the great Earls of Clare, who 
owned the property at the time of the Domesday 
Survey. In the fourteenth century it belonged 



THE HOME OF THE GRESHAMS 1 19 

to the Uvedale family, and two hundred years 
later was sold to Sir John Gresham, an uncle of 
Sir Thomas Gresham, the illustrious merchant 
of Queen Elizabeth's court, and the founder of 
the Royal Exchange. A fine portrait of Sir 
Thomas himself, by Antonio More, now hangs 
in the library of Titsey Place. Unfortunately the 
Greshams suffered for their loyalty to Charles I., 
and after the death of the second Sir Marmaduke 
Gresham in 1742, a large part of the property 
was sold. His son. Sir John, succeeded in 
partly retrieving the fortunes of the family, and 
rebuilt and enlarged the old manor-house, which 
had been allowed to fall into a ruinous state. 
But the Tudor arches of the east wing still 
remain, as well as much of the fine oak panelling 
which adorned its walls ; and the crest of the 
Greshams, a grasshopper, may still be seen in 
the hall chimney-piece. The present owner, 
Mr. Leveson-Gower, is a lineal descendant of 
the last baronet, and inherited Titsey from his 
great-grandmother Katherine, the heiress of the 
Greshams. The fourteenth-century church was 
unluckily pulled down a hundred years ago. 



I20 



REIGATE TO CHEVENING 




...-. - " --v Z(r^-i/i0^k^J^';.'^ . '• 






BRASTED. 



because Sir John Gresham thought it stood too 
near his own house, but an old yew in the garden 
and some tombstones of early Norman date still 
mark its site. The course of the Pilgrims' Way 
through the Park is clearly marked by a double 
row of fine ash trees, and the flint stones with 
which the road itself is paved may still be seen 
under the turf. Further along the road is a very 
old farmhouse, which was formerly a hostelry, 
and still bears the name of the Pilgrims' Lodge. 
From Titsey the Way runs along the side of the 
hills, under Tatsfield Church, which stands on 



THE MANOR OF CHEVENING 121 

the summit of the ridge, and about a mile above 
the pretty little towns of Westerham and Brasted. 
Here the boundary of the counties is crossed, and 
the traveller enters Kent. Soon we reach the 
gates of Chevening Park, where, as at Titsey, 
the Pilgrims' Way formerly passed very near 
the house, until it was closed by Act of Parlia- 
ment in 1780. 

The manor of Chevening, originally the 
property of the See of Canterbury, was held in 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the 
family of Chevening, from whence it passed to 
the Lennards, who became Barons Dacre and 
Earls of Sussex. In the last century it was 
bought by General Stanhope, the distinguished 
soldier and statesman, who, after reducing the 
island of Minorca, served King George I. suc- 
cessively as Secretary of State and First Lord of 
the Treasury. Inigo Jones built the house for 
Richard Lennard, Lord Dacre, early in the 
seventeenth century, but since then it has under- 
gone such extensive alterations that little of 
the original structure remains, and the chief 
interest lies in a valuable collection of historical 



122 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

portraits, including those of the Chesterfields, 
Stanhopes, and the great Lord Chatham. The 
last-named statesman, whose daughter Hester 
married Charles, Lord Stanhope, in 1774, was 
a frequent visitor at Chevening, and is said to 
have planned the beautiful drive which leads 
through the woods north of the house to the 
top of the downs. The little village of Cheven- 
ing lies on the other side of the park, just 
outside Lord Stanhope's gates and close to the 
old church of St. Botolph, which was one of the 
shrines frequented by the pilgrims on their way 
to Canterbury. There are some good Early 
English arches in the nave and chancel, and a 
western tower of Perpendicular date. The south 
chapel contains many imposing sepulchral monu- 
ments to the different lords of the manor. Amongst 
them are those of John Lennard, who was sheriff 
of the county and held several offices under the 
crown in the reigns of Henry VHL and Elizabeth, 
and of his son Sampson, who with his wife 
Margaret, Lady Dacre in her own right, reposes 
under a sumptuous canopy of alabaster surrounded 
by kneeling effigies of their children. There is 




CHEVENING CHURCH. 



124 REIGATE TO CHEVENING 

also a fine black marble monument to the memory 
of James, Earl of Stanhope, the prime minister 
of George I., who was buried here with great 
pomp in 1 72 1. He was actually in office at the 
time of his death, and was taken ill in the House 
of Lords, and breathed his last the next day. 
But the most beautiful tomb here is Chantrey's 
effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope sleeping with 
her babe in her arms, and an expression of deep 
content and peace upon her quiet face. 

" Storms may rush in, and crimes and woes 
Deform the quiet bower ; 
They may not mar the deep repose 
Of that immortal flower." 







OtjoTd M 









.\^4'!". 



OXFORD CHURCH. 



CHAPTER VIII 



OTFORD TO WROTHAM 



We have followed the Pilgrims' Way over Hamp- 
shire Downs and Surrey hills and commons, 
through the woods which Evelyn planted, and 
along the ridge where Cobbett rode. We have 
seen the track become overgrown with tangled 
shrubs and underwood, and disappear altogether 
in places. We have lost the road at one point 
in the fields, to find it again half a mile further; 
we have noted the regular lines of yews climbing 

125 



126 OXFORD TO WROTHAM 

Up the hill-side, and the lonely survivors which 
are left standing bare and desolate in the middle 
of the corn-fields. The part of the ancient road 
on which we are now entering differs in several 
important respects from its earlier course. From 
the time the Pilgrims' Way enters Kent its 
track is clearly marked. Already we have fol- 
lowed its line through Titsey and along the 
downs as far as Chevening, where the path, 
now closed, may be traced through Lord Stan- 
hope's Park. A group of magnificent old yew 
trees arrests our attention just beyond Chevening, 
before the road from Sevenoaks to Bromley is 
crossed. Then the Way descends into the valley 
of the Darent, an excellent trout-stream which 
flows north through this chalk district to join 
the Thames near Dartford, and after crossing the 
ford over that river, regains the hills at Otford. 
From this place it runs along under the hill in 
one unbroken line all the way to Eastwell Park, 
between Ashford and Canterbury. It is a good 
bridle-way, somewhat grass-grown in places, in 
others enclosed by hedges, and still used by 
farmers for their carts. Before toll-bars were 



THE UNFORGOTTEN ROAD I27 

abolished there was a good deal of traffic along 
this part of the Pilgrims' Road, which, running 
as it does parallel with the turnpike road along 
the valley to Ashford, was much used as a means 
of evading the payment of toll. This cause is 
now removed, and excepting for an occasional 
hunting-man who makes use of the soft track 
along the hill-side, or a camp of gipsies sitting 
round their fire, waggoners and ploughmen are 
the only wayfarers to be met with along the 
Pilgrims' Road. But the old name still clings 
to the track, and as long as the squires of Kent 
have any respect for the traditions of the past, 
any particle of historic sense remaining, they will 
not allow the Pilgrims' Way to be wiped out. 

In actual beauty of scenery this portion of 
the Way may not equal the former part. We 
miss the wild loveliness of Surrey commons, the 
rare picturesqueness of the rolling downs round 
Guildford and Dorking, but this Kentish land 
has a charm of its own, which grows upon you 
the longer you know it. These steep slopes and 
wooded hollows, these grand old church towers 
and quaint village streets, these homesteads with 



128 OXFORD TO WROTHAM 

their vast barns of massive timber and tall 
chimney-stacks overshadowed with oaks and 
beeches, cannot fail to delight the eyes of all 
who find pleasure in rural scenes. And all 
along our way we have that noble prospect over 
the wide plains of the dim blue Weald, which 
is seldom absent from our eyes, as we follow 
this narrow track up and down the rugged hill- 
side. In historic interest and precious memorials 
of the past, this part of the Pilgrims' Way, we 
need hardly say, is surpassingly rich. Endless 
are the great names and stirring events which 
these scenes recall : battlefields where memorable 
fights were fought in days long ago, churches 
and lands that were granted to the Archbishops 
or Abbots of Canterbury before the Conquest, 
manor-houses which our kings and queens have 
honoured with their presence in the days of 
yore. All these things, and many more of equal 
interest and renown, will the traveller find as he 
follows the Pilgrims' Way along the chalk hills 
which form the backbone of Kent. 

The first resting-place which the pilgrims 
would find on this part of their route would be 



OXFORD 129 

the Archbishop's manor-house at Otford. There 
were no less than fifteen of these episcopal 
residences in different parts of Kent, Surrey, 
and Sussex, and of these, three lay along the 
Kentish portion of the Pilgrims' Way. The 
palace at Otford possessed an especial sanctity 
in the eyes of wayfarers journeying to the shrine 
of St. Thomas, as having been a favourite residence 
of the martyred Archbishop himself. The manor 
was originally granted to the See of Canterbury 
in 791, by Offa, king of Mercia, who defeated 
Aldric, king of Kent, at Otford in 773, and 
conquered almost the whole province. 

More than two hundred years later, Otford 
was the scene of another battle, in which Edmund 
Ironside defeated the Danes under Knut, and to 
this day bones are dug up in the meadow which 
bears the name of Danefield. From the tenth 
century the Archbishops had a house here, and 
Otford is described in the Domesday Survey as 
Terra Archiepi Cantiiariensis. So it remained 
until Cranmer surrendered the palace, with many 
other of his possessions, to Henry VIII. The 
mediaeval Archbishops seem to have had an 

9 



130 OTFORD TO WROTHAM 

especial affection for Otford, and spent much of 
their time at this pleasant country seat. Arch- 
bishop Winchelsea entertained Edward I. in 
1300, and was living here at the time of his 
death thirteen years later, when his remains were 
borne by the King's command to Canterbury, 
and buried there with great state. Simon Islip 
enclosed the park, and Archbishop Deane repaired 
the walls ; but the whole was rebuilt on a grander 
scale by Warham, who spent upwards of thirty 
thousand pounds upon the house, and received 
Henry VIII. here several times in the first years 
of his reign. 

After Otford had become Crown property, the 
Archbishop's manor-house passed into the hands 
of the Sydneys and Smyths, who dismantled the 
castle, as it was then commonly called, and allowed 
the walls to fall into ruin. Two massive octa- 
gonal towers of three stories, with double square- 
headed windows, and a fragment of a cloister, 
now used as farm stables, are the only portions 
remaining. These evidently formed part of the 
outer court, and are good specimens of fifteenth- 
century brickwork. The tower was considerably 



BECKET S WELL 13I 

higher a hundred years ago, and Hasted describes 
the ruins as covering nearly an acre of ground. 
The stones of the structure were largely used in 
the neighbouring buildings, and the Bull Inn 
contains a good deal of fine oak wainscoting, and 
several handsome carved mantelpieces, which 
originally belonged to the castle. Two heads in 
profile, carved in oak over one of the fireplaces, 
are said to represent Henry VHI. and Katherine 
of Aragon. A bath, or chamber, paved and 
lined with stone, about thirty feet long, and ten 
or twelve feet deep, not far from the ruins, still 
bears the name of Becket's Well. Tradition 
ascribes the birth of the spring which supplies 
it to St. Thomas, who, finding no water at 
Otford, struck the hill-side with his staff, and at 
once brought forth a clear stream, which since 
then has never been known to fail. Another 
legend tells how the Saint one day, being '* busie 
at his prayers in the garden at Otford, was much 
disturbed by the sweete note and melodic of a 
nightingale that sang in a bush beside him, and 
in the might of his holinesse commanded all birds 
of this kind to be henceforth silent," after which 



132 OXFORD TO WROTHAM 

the nightingale was never heard at Otford. But 
with the decay of the palace and the departure 
of the Archbishops, the spell was broken ; and 
the Protestant Lambarde, when he was at Otford, 
takes pleasure in recording how many nightin- 
gales he heard singing thereabouts. 

From Otford the Pilgrims' Way runs along 
the edge of the hills about half a mile above the 
villages of Kemsing and Wrotham, and passes 
close to St. Clere, a mansion built by Inigo Jones, 
where Mrs. Boscawen, the witty correspondent of 
Mrs. Delany and the friend of Johnson and 
Boswell, was born. Kemsing still retains its old 
church and well, both consecrated to the memory 
of the Saxon Princess, St. Edith, whose image in 
the churchyard was, during centuries, the object of 
the peasants' devout veneration. " Some seelie 
bodie," writes Lambarde, who visited these shrines 
in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and delights in pour- 
ing contempt on the old traditions of these 
country shrines, "brought a peche or two, or a 
bushelle of corne, to the churche after praiers 
made, offered it to the image of the saint. Of 
this offering the priest used to toll the greatest 




THE PORCH, KEMSING CHURCH. 



134 OXFORD TO WROTHAM 

portion, and then to take one handful or Httle 
more of the residue (for you must consider he 
woulde bee sure to gaine by the bargaine), the 
which, after aspersion of holy water and the 
mumbling of a fewe words of conjuration, he first 
dedicated to the image of Saint Edith, and then 
delivered it backe to the partie that brought it ; 
who departed with full persuasion that if he 
mingled that hallowed handfull with his seede 
corne, it would preserve from harme and prosper 
in growthe the whole heape that he should sowe, 
were it never so great a stacke." 

Wrotham was the site of another of the Arch- 
bishops' manor-houses, and rivalled Otford in 
antiquity, having been granted to the See of 
Canterbury by Athelstan in 964. Wrotham was 
never as favourite a residence with the Arch- 
bishops as Otford, but they stopped here fre-^ 
quently on their progresses through Kent, until, 
in the fourteenth century, Simon Islip pulled 
down the house to supply materials for the build- 
ing of his new palace at Maidstone. A terrace 
and some scanty remains of the offices are the 
only fragments now to be seen at Wrotham, but 



WROTHAM CHURCH 



135 



the charming situation of the village in the midst 
of luxuriant woods, and the beauty of the view 
over the Weald from Wrotham Hill, attract many 




WROTHAM CHURCH. 



visitors. The church has several features of 
architectural interest, including a handsome rood- 
screen of the fourteenth century, and a watching- 
chamber over the chancel, as well as a curious 
archway under the tower, which was probably 



136 OXFORD TO WROTHAM 

used as a passage for processions from the 
Palace. It contains many tombs and brasses, 
chiefly of the Peckham family, who held the 
manor of Yaldham in this parish for upwards of 
five hundred years. Below the church is Wrotham 
Place, a fine old Tudor house with a corridor 
and rooms of the fifteenth century, and a charm- 
ing garden front bearing the date 1560. Fair- 
lawn, the ancestral home of the Vanes, also lies 
in a corner of Wrotham parish, and a terrace, 
bordered with close-clipped yew hedges, and sur- 
rounded by sunny lawns, where peacocks spread 
their tails over the grass, is still pointed out 
as a favourite walk of that stout old regicide, 
Sir Harry Vane. Ightham, with its famous Mote, 
so perfect a picture of an old English house, 
is close by, within a walk of Wrotham station, 
but lies, unluckily, on the opposite side from 
the line of hills along which our path takes us. 



WAHTHOI ,aT01/i :iHT 



136 WROTH AM 

used or processions irom me 

Pal ' "^bs and brasses, 

\ who held the 

h for upwards of 

nrch is Wrotham 

th a corridor 

i a charm- 

1560. Fair- 

the Vanes, also lies 

parish, and a terrace 

d yew hedges, and sur- 

'.ere peacocks spread 

THE MOTE, IGHTHAJVi i-ir ' i. J ' i. 

' s, is still pointed out 
1 that stout old regicide, 
ham, with its famous Mote, 
^ an old English house, 
ik of Wrotham station, 
the opposite side from 
.hich our path takes us. 




i,s^^j^^^b^'^&^'^'^'r'*'^j:^h^^'^' ^^ 



WroHiam looking Sou1-li ^ 







WROTHAM, LOOKING SOUTH. 

CHAPTER IX 

WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

The Pilgrims' Way continues its course over 
Wrotham Hill and along the side of the chalk 
downs. This part of the track is a good bridle 
road, with low grass banks or else hedges on 
either side, and commands fine views over the 
rich Kentish plains, the broad valley of the 
Medway, and the hills on the opposite shore. 
The river itself glitters in the sun, but as we 
draw nearer the beauty of the prospect is sorely 
marred by the ugly chimneys and dense smoke 
of the Snodland limestone works. 



137 



138 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

At one point on the downs, close to the Vigo 
Inn, a few hundred yards above our road, there 
is a very extensive view over the valley of the 
Thames, ranging from Shooters' Hill to Graves- 
end, and far away out to sea. In the daytime 
the masts of the shipping in the river are clearly 
seen. At night the Nore lights twinkle like stars 
in the distance. The height of these downs is 
close on 700 feet, that of Knockholt is 783 feet. 
On the other side of the Medway the chalk range 
is considerably lower, and the highest points are 
above Detling, 657 feet, Hollingbourne, 606 feet, 
and Charing, 640 feet. 

The Way now runs past Pilgrims' house, 
formerly the Kentish Drovers' Inn, above the 
old church and village of Trottescliffe (Trosley) 
and the megalithic stones known as Coldrum 
circle, one of the best preserved cromlechs along 
the road. Further on a short lane leads south 
to Biding Place, the ancient home of the Nevills, 
who have owned the estate since the middle of 
the fifteenth century, while in a group of old 
farm buildings at Paddlesworth (formerly Pauls- 
ford) we find the remains of a Norman Pilgrims' 



140 



WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 




TROTTESCLIFFE. 



Chapel, with a fine Early English arch. The 
track now crosses a large field and enters S nod- 
land, an old town containing many Roman 
remains, and an interesting church, but sadly 
disfigured by cement works and paper factories. 

Here the pilgrims left the hills to descend 
into the valley below. Twice before, at Shalford 
and Dorking, they had crossed the rivers which 
make their way through the chalk range ; now 
they had reached the third great break in the 
downs, and the broad stream of the Medway lay 



FORD PLACE 



141 







FORD PLACE, NEAR WROTHAM. 



at their feet. They might, if they pleased, go on 
to Rochester, three miles higher up, and join the 
road taken by the London pilgrims along the 
Watling Street to Canterbury — the route of 
Chaucer's pilgrimage. But most of them, it 
appears, preferred to follow the hills to which 
they had clung so long. 

The exact point where they crossed the river 
has been often disputed. According to the old 
maps it was by the ford at Cuxton, where the 



142 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

river was shallow enough to allow of their 
passage. From Bunker's Farm, immediately 
above Birling, a road diverges northwards to 
Cuxton and Rochester, and was certainly used 
by many of the pilgrims. At Upper Hailing, on 
this track, we may still see the lancet windows 
of a pilgrims' shrine formerly dedicated to 
St. Laurence, which have been built into some 
cottages known as Chapel houses. The Bishops 
of Rochester, who held this manor from Eg- 
bert's days, had "a right fair house" at Lower 
Hailing, on the banks of the Medway, with 
a vineyard which produced grapes for King 
Henry HI.'s table. This pleasant manor-house 
on the river was the favourite summer residence 
of Bishop Hamo de Hethe, who built a new hall 
and chapel in the reign of Edward L, and placed 
his own statue on a gateway which was still 
standing in the eighteenth century. Another 
interesting house, Whorne Place, lies a little 
higher up, on the banks of the Medway, where 
the grass-grown track leading from Bunker's 
Farm joins the main road to Cuxton and 
Rochester. This fine brick mansion formerly 



MAIDSTONE I43 

belonged to the Levesons, and the quarterings of 
Sir John Leveson and his two wives are to be 
seen above the central porch. 

In the thirteenth century a great number of 
pilgrims seem to have stopped at Maidstone, 
where, in 1261, Archbishop Boniface built a 
hospital for their reception on the banks of the 
Medway. The funds which supported this hos- 
pital, the Newark — New-work, Novi operis, as it 
was called — were diverted by Archbishop Cour- 
tenay, a hundred and forty years later, to the 
maintenance of his new college of All Saints, on 
the opposite side of the river, but a remnant of 
the older foundation is still preserved in the 
beautiful Early English Chancel of St. Peter's 
Church, which was originally attached to Boni- 
face's hospital, and is still known as the Pilgrims' 
Chapel. By the time that Archbishop Courtenay 
founded his college, the stream of pilgrims had 
greatly diminished, and the hostel which had 
been intended for their resting-place was rapidly 
sinking into a common almshouse. Maidstone, 
too, no doubt, lay considerably out of the pilgrims' 
course, and the great majority naturally preferred 



144 



WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 






5- #-<!#.' 



',^'k'#«»-^ 






^-^ 



'*''\< 
X""^^ 






^v-'i: 







The 7ri a V y -^^<u-->' '"" '^ 



THE FRIARY, AYLESFORD. 



to cross the Medway by the ferry at Snodland. 
Others again might choose Aylesford, which lay 
a mile or two below. At this ancient town, the 
Eglesford of the Saxon Chronicle, there was a 



KITS COTY HOUSE I45 

stone bridge across the river, and a Carmelite 
Priory founded in 1240 by Richard de Grey, on 
his return from the Crusades, where the pilgrims 
would be sure to find shelter. But even if they 
did not cross the Medway at this place, where 
the old church stands so picturesquely on its 
high bank overhanging river and red roofs, the 
pilgrims certainly passed through the parish 
of Aylesford. For on the opposite banks of the 
ferry at Snodland the familiar line of yew trees 
appears again, ascending the hill by Durham 
church, and runs through the upper part of 
Aylesford parish, close to the famous dolmen of 
Kits Coty House. This most interesting sepul- 
chral monument, Ked-coit — Celtic for the Tomb 
in the Wood — consists of three upright blocks of 
sandstone about eight feet high and eight feet 
broad, with a covering stone of eleven feet which 
forms the roof, and is one of a group of similar 
remains which lie scattered over the hill-side and 
are locally known as the Countless Stones. We 
have here, in fact, a great cemetery of the Druids 
which once extended for many miles on both 
sides of the river. Deep pits dug out in the 
10 



146 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

chalk, filled with flints and covered with slabs 
of stone, have been discovered on Aylesford 
Common, and a whole avenue of stones formerly 
connected this burial place with the cromlechs at 
Addington, six miles off. Here, if the old legend 
be true, was fought the great battle which decided 
the fate of Britain, and gave England into the 
hands of the English. For at this place, the 
old chroniclers say, about the year 455, the Saxon 
invaders stopped on their march to the Castle 
of Rochester, and turning southwards met the 
Britons in that deadly fray, when both Kentigern 
and Horsa were left dead on the field of battle. 
Ancient military entrenchments are still visible 
on the hill-side near Kits Coty House, and a 
boulder on the top was long pointed out as the 
stone on which Hengist was proclaimed the first 
king of Kent. 

About a mile from this memorable spot, in 
the plains at the foot of the downs, was a shrine 
which no pilgrim of mediaeval days would leave 
unvisited, the Cistercian Abbey of Boxley, then 
generally known as the Abbatia S. Crucis de 
Gracias, the Abbey of the Holy Rood of Grace. 



toaiMfi a>lo^cJ.l/A 



chalk, f' overed with slabs 

of si: n Aylesford 

Coro^ les formerly 

CO -nlechs at 

A d legend 

b. 'ecided 

+1 o the 

:. the 

nil 

;le 

south war iv 

AYLESFORD BRIDGE i ,4 ry 

en both Kentigern 

he field of battle 

Jiments are still visible 

'■'■ ^oty House, and a 

iong pointed out as the 

was proclaimed the first 

... ., liiemorable spot, in 

the downs, was a shrine 

diaeval days would leave 

ui Abbe "ley, then 

p-f Abbatia rucis de 

Gi I the Holy Rood of Grace. 



BOXLEY ABBEY 



147 




^^S^^iSg, 



<^X 



tl'fir 



^^/a^^J 



jp^ifp^^^^^^^^ 



KitV CoTl-i, House M 



KITS COTY HOUSE. 



Not only was Boxley, next to Waverley Abbey, 
the oldest Cistercian house founded on this side 
of the Channel, \\i^ filia propria of the great house 
of Clairvaux, but the convent church rejoiced in 
the possession of two of the most celebrated 
wonder-working relics in all England. There 
was the image of St. Rumbold, that infant child 
of a Saxon prince who proclaimed himself a 
Christian the moment of his birth, and after 
three days spent in edifying his pagan hearers, 



148 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

departed this life. This image could only be 
lifted by the pure and good, and having a hidden 
spring, which could be worked by the hands or 
feet of the monks, was chiefly influenced by 
the amount of the coin that was paid into their 
hands. And there was that still greater marvel, 
the miraculous Rood, or winking image, a wooden 
crucifix which rolled its eyes and moved its lips 
in response to the devotees who crowded from all 
parts of England to see the wondrous sight. 
The clever mechanism of this image, said to have 
been invented by an English prisoner during his 
captivity in France, was exposed by Henry VIII.'s 
commissioners in 1538, who discovered "certayn 
ingyns of old wyer with olde roten stykkes in 
the back of the same," and showed them to the 
people of Maidstone on market-day, after which 
the Rood of Grace was taken to London and 
solemnly broken in pieces at Paul's Cross. The 
Abbey of Boxley owned vast lands, and the Abbots 
were frequently summoned to Parliament, and 
lived in great state. Among the royal guests 
whom they entertained was King Edward II., 
whose visit was made memorable by the letter which 



CISTERCIAN EXTRAVAGANCE 



149 




Lcoh^na W«.t I^S. .Uv. ^o.l.., AU 



LOOKING WEST FROM ABOVE BOXLEY ABBEY. 



he addressed from Boxley Abbey to the Aldermen 
of the City of London, granting them the right 
of electing a Lord Mayor. At one time their ex- 
travagance brought them to the verge of ruin, 
as we learn from a letter which Archbishop 
Warham addressed to Cardinal Wolsey ; but at 
the dissolution the Commissioners could find no 
cause of complaint against the monks, excepting 
the profusion of flowers in the convent garden, 
which made them comment on the waste of turn- 
ing " the rents of the monastery into gillyflowers 
10* 



150 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

and roses." The foundations of the church where 
the Cistercians showed off their " sotelties " may 
still be traced in the gardens of the house built 
by Sir Thomas Wyatt on the site of the abbey. 
Here some precious fragments of the ruins are 
still preserved. The chapel of St. Andrew, which 
stood near the great gateway, has been turned 
into cottages, and the noble "guesten-house, "where 
strangers were lodged, is now a barn. The old 
wall remains to show the once vast extent of the 
Abbey precincts. Now these grey stones are 
mantled with thick bushes of ivy, and a fine 
clump of elm trees overshadows the red-tiled roof 
of the ancient guest-house in the meadows, but 
we look in vain for poor Abbot John's gillyflowers 
and roses. 

Between Boxley Abbey and Maidstonestretches 
the wide common of Penenden Heath, famous 
from time immemorial as the place where all 
great county meetings were held. Here the 
Saxons held their ** gemotes," and here in 1076, 
was that memorable assembly before which 
Lanfranc pleaded the cause of the Church of 
Canterbury against Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Earl 



BOXLEY 151 

of Kent, the Conqueror's half-brother, who had 
defrauded Christ Church of her rights, and laid 
violent hands on many of her manors and lands. 
Not only were the Kentish nobles and bishops 
summoned to try the cause, but barons and dis- 
tinguished ecclesiastics, and many men " of great 
and good account," from all parts of England 
and Normandy, were present that day. Godfrey, 
Bishop of Coutances, represented the King, and 
Agelric, the aged Bishop of Chester, " an ancient 
man well versed in the laws and customs of the 
realm," was brought there in a chariot by the 
King's express command. Three days the trial 
lasted, during which Lanfranc pleaded his cause 
so well against the rapacious Norman that the 
see of Canterbury recovered its former possessions, 
and saw its liberties firmly established. 

The village and church of Boxley (Bose-leu 
in Domesday), so called from the box trees that 
grow freely along the downs, as at Box Hill, are 
about a mile and a half beyond the Abbey, and 
lie on the sloping ground at the foot of the hills, 
close to the Pilgrims' Way. Old houses and 
timbered barns, with lofty gables and irregular 



152 WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 

roofs, are grouped round the church, which is 
itself as picturesque an object as any, with its 
massive towers and curious old red-tiled Galilee 
porch. Next we reach Detling, a small village, 
prettily situated on the slope of the hills, with 
a church containing a rare specimen of mediaeval 
wood-work in the shape of a carved oak reading- 
desk, enriched with pierced tracery of the 
Decorated period. We pass Thurnham, with the 
foundations of its Saxon castle high up on the 
downs, and then enter Hollingbourne. As Boxley 
reminds us of the box trees on the hill-side, 
and Thurnham of the thorn trees in the wood, 
so Hollingbourne owes its name to the hollies on 
the burn or stream which runs through the parish. 
William Cobbett, whose memory has followed us 
all the way from the Itchen valley, describes how 
he rode over Hollingbourne Hill on his return 
from Dover to the Wen, and from the summit of 
that down, one of the highest in this neighbour- 
hood, looked down over the fair Kentish land, 
which in its richness and beauty seemed to him 
another Garden of Eden. 



YiiJzoa Ai.dvi ,Yaj;iAoa ta JiOAnoo 



ic;2 



WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE 



roofs, are grou 


' una inc church, whicn is 


itself as 


picture. 


. t... . ^g ^j^y^ ^j|.j^ -^g 


massiv-' 
porch. 


f ■-^. .,-,..,-^ 


'^^d-tiled Galilee 
01 all village, 


prettil 




hills, with 


a chui 




ediaeval 


wood- 




ling- 


de 




the 
ihurr n the 

igh up on the 


dov 




iiiiigbuarne. As Boxley 




COTTAGE A'l 


' BOAKLEY, NEAR BOXLEY ; e hill-SldC, 

, iiLutn irees m the wood, 

' '^ name to the hollies on 

runs through the parish. 

iiemory has followed us 


i.1. 




m valley, describes how 


he 




urne Hill on his return 


f n . 




a, and from the summit of 
• highest in this neighbour- 


hood. 




ver the fair Kentish land, 


Wl: 




md beauty seemed to him 


anoth; 


uf ; 


Eden. 



CHAPTER X 

HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

The village of Hollingbourne lies at the foot of 
the hill, and an old inn at the corner of the 
Pilgrims' Road, now called the King's Head, was 
formerly known by the name of the Pilgrims' Rest. 
The history of Hollingbourne is full of interest. 
The manor was granted to the church at Canter- 
bury, " for the support of the monks," by young 
Athelstan, the son of ^thelred H., in the year 
980, and was retained by the monastery when 
Lanfranc divided the lands belonging to Christ 
Church between the priory and the see. It is 
described in Domesday as Terra Monachorum 
Archiepi, the land of the monk and the Arch- 
bishop; in later records as Manormm Monachorum 
et de cibo eortmi, a manor of the monks and for 
their food. The Priors of Christ Church held 

153 



154 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

their courts here, and the convent records tell us 
that Prior William Sellyng greatly improved the 
Priory rooms at Hollingbourne. Their residence 
probably occupied the site of the present manor- 
house. This handsome red-brick building, rich 
in gables and mullions, in oak panelling and 
secret hiding-places, was built in Queen Elizabeth's 
reign by the great Kentish family of the Culpepers, 
who at that time owned most of the parish. 
More than one fragment of the earlier house, 
encased in the Elizabethan building, has been 
brought to light, and a pointed stone archway of 
the thirteenth century, and an old fireplace with 
herring-bone brickwork, have lately been dis- 
covered. Many are the interesting traditions 
which belong to this delightful old manor-house. 
The yews in the garden are said to have been 
planted by Queen Elizabeth on one of her royal 
progresses through Kent, when she stayed at 
Leeds Castle, and was the guest of Sir Henry 
Wotton at Boughton Malherbe. According to 
another very old local tradition, Katherine Howard, 
whose mother was a Culpeper, spent some years 
here as a girl, and the ghost of that unhappy 



156 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

queen is said to haunt one of the upper chambers 
of the house. Another room, called the Needle- 
Room, was occupied during the Commonwealth 
by the daughters of that faithful loyalist, John 
Lord Culpeper, Frances, Judith, and Philippa, 
who employed the weary years of their father's 
exile in embroidering a gorgeous altar-cloth and 
hangings, which they presented to the parish 
church on the happy day when the king came 
back to enjoy his own again. The tapestries, 
worked by the same deft fingers, which once 
adorned the chambers of the manor-house, are 
gone, and the hangings of the reading-desk in 
the church have been cut up into a frontal, but 
the altar-cloth remains absolutely intact, and is 
one of the finest pieces of embroidery of the kind 
in England. Both design and colouring are 
of the highest beauty. On a ground of violet 
velvet, bordered with a frieze of cherub heads, 
we see the twelve mystic fruits of the Tree of 
Life— the grape, orange, cherry, apple, plum, pear, 
mulberry, acorn, peach, medlar, quince, and 
pomegranate. The richest hues of rose and green 
are delicately blended together, and their effect 



SEATS OF THE CULPEPERS I57 

is heightened by the gold thread in which the 
shading is worked. The lapse of two centuries 
and a half has not dimmed the brightness of 
their colours, which are as fresh as if the work 
had been finished yesterday. A needle which 
had been left in a corner of the altar-cloth all 
those long years ago was still to be seen sticking 
in the velvet early in the last century, but has 
now disappeared. 

This goodly manor-house was only one of 
several seats belonging to the Culpepers in this 
neighbourhood. They had a mansion at Green- 
way Court, which was burnt down in the last 
century, and another of imposing dimensions 
where Grove Court now stands. In the seventeenth 
century the Lords Culpeper also owned Leeds 
Castle, that noble moated house, a mile to the 
south, which was once a royal park, and is still 
one of the finest places in Kent. But the second 
Lord Culpeper died without a male heir in 1688, 
and this famous house passed by marriage into 
the Fairfax family. The Hollingbourne branch 
of the Culpepers died out in the course of the 
last century, and at the present time no member 



158 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

of this illustrious family is known to exist in 
England, although persons bearing this ancient 
name are still to be found in America. The 
church at Hollingbourne contains a whole series 
of Culpeper monuments. The most remarkable 
is the white marble altar-tomb, which bears the 
recumbent effigy of Elizabeth Lady Culpeper, who 
died in 1638, and is described in the inscription 
on her monument as Optima Fceniina, Optima 
Conjitx, et Optima Mater. This lady was the 
heiress of the Cheney family, whose arms, the ox's 
hide and horns, appear on the shield at the 
foot of the tomb, and are repeated in the stained 
glass of the chapel window. Tradition says that 
Sir John Cheney had his helmet struck off, when 
he fought by the victor's side on Bosworth Field, 
and fixed a bull's horns on his head in its place. 
Afterwards Henry VII. gave him this crest, when 
he made him a Baron and a Knight of the Garter, 
in reward for his valour on that hard-fought field. 
A monument on the north wall of the chancel 
records the memory of John Lord Culpeper, who 
was successively Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
Master of the Rolls, and Privy Councillor to 



DAME GRACE GETHIN 1 59 

Charles I. and Charles 11. ''For equal fidelity 
to the king and kingdome," says the epitaph on 
his tomb, " he was most exemplary." He followed 
the last-named king into exile and remained there 
until the Restoration, when " with him he re- 
turned tryumphant into England on the 29th of 
May, 1660," only to die six weeks afterwards, 
** to the irreparable losse of his family." Another 
descendant of the Culpepers is buried under the 
altar in this church, Dame Grace Gethin, a great 
grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Culpeper, and 
wife of Sir Richard Gethin, of Gethinge Grott, 
in Ireland, whose learning and virtues were so 
renowned that monuments were erected in her 
honour both at Bath and in Westminster Abbey. 
This youthful prodigy, who died at the age of 
twenty-one, is here represented kneeling between 
two angels, and holding in her hand the common- 
place book which she filled with extracts from her 
favourite authors, and which was afterwards pub- 
lished under the title of " Reliquiae Gethinianae." 
Her piety was as great as her personal charms, 
and the inscription on her monument records 
how, "being adorned with all the Graces and 



l6o HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

Perfections of mind and body, crowned them all 
with exemplary Patience and Humility, and 
having the day before her death most devoutly 
received the Holy Communion, which she said 
she would not have omitted for Ten Thousand 
Worlds, she was vouchsafed in a miraculous 
manner an immediate prospect of her future 
Blisse, for the space of two hours, to the astonish- 
ment of all about her, and being, like St. Paul, 
in an unexpressible Transport of joy, thereby fully 
evincing her foresight of the Heavenly Glory, 
in unconceivable Raptures triumphing over Death, 
and continuing sensible to the last, she resigned 
her pious soul to God, and victoriously entered 
into rest, Oct. nth, anno aetatis 21, D'ni : 1697. 
Her dear and affectionate Mother, whom God in 
mercy supported by seeing her glorious end, 
erected this monument, she being her last surviving 
issue." 

Soon after leaving Hollingbourne, the Pilgrims' 
Way enters the grounds of Stede Hill, and passes 
through the beech-woods that spread down the 
grassy slopes to the village and church of Harriet- 
sham — Heriard's Home in Domesday — in the 



LENHAM l6l 

valley below. An altar-tomb, to the memory of 
Sir William Stede, who died in 1574, and several 
other monuments to members of the same family, 
may be seen in the south chapel of the church, 
a fine building of Early English and Perpendicular 
work, with a good rood-screen, standing in an 
open space at the foot of the Stede Hill grounds. 
The rectory of Harrietsham was formerly attached 
to the neighbouring Priory of Leeds, but was 
granted by Henry VI. to Archbishop Chichele's 
newly founded College of All Souls, Oxford, 
which still retains the patronage of this living. 
The manor was one of many in this neighbour- 
hood given to Odo of Bayeux after the battle 
of Hastings, and afterwards formed part of the 
vast estates owned by Juliana de Leyborne, called 
the Infanta of Kent, who was married three 
times, but died without children, leaving her 
lands to become crown property. 

A mile farther the Pilgrims' Way enters the 
town of Lenham. This parish contains both the 
sources of the river Len — the Aqua lena of the 
Romans — which flows through Harrietsham and 
by Leeds Castle into the Medway, and that of the 
1 1 



l62 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

Stour, which runs in the opposite direction to- 
wards Canterbury. Lenham has held a charter, 
and enjoyed the privileges of a town from mediaeval 
times. The bright little market-square, full of 
old houses with massive oak beams, and quaint 
corners jutting out in all directions, hardly agrees 
with Hasted's description of Lenham as a dull, 
unfrequented place, where nothing thrives in the 
barren soil, and the inhabitants, when asked by 
travellers if this is Lenham, invariably reply, 
"Ah, sir, poor Lenham!" The picturesqueness 
of its buildings is undeniable, and its traditions 
are of the highest antiquity. The manor of Lenham 
was granted to the Abbey of St. Augustine at 
Canterbury by Cenulf, king of Mercia, more than 
a thousand years ago, and in the twelfth century 
the church was appropriated to the Refectory of 
St. Augustine ; that is to say, the rectorial tithes 
were made to supply the monks' dinners. Some 
fragments of the original Norman church still 
exist, but the greater part of the present structure, 
the arcade of bays, the fine traceried windows of 
the aisle, and most of the chancel, belong to the 
Decorated period, and were rebuilt after the great 



164 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

fire in 1297, when not only the church, but the 
Abbot's barns and farm buildings were burnt to 
the ground by an incendiary. So great was the 
sensation produced by this act of wanton mischief, 
that Archbishop Winchelsea himself came to 
Lenham to see the ravages wrought by the fire, 
and fulminated a severe excommunication against 
the perpetrators of the wicked deed. The sixteen 
oak stalls for the monks, and an arched stone 
sedilia, of the fourteenth century, which served 
the Abbot for his throne when he visited his 
Lenham estates, are still to be seen in the chancel. 
Here, too, is a sepulchral effigy let into the north 
wall in a curious sideways position, representing 
a priest in his robes, supposed to be that of 
Thomas de Apulderfelde, who lived at Lenham 
in the reign of Edward IL, and died in 1327. 
Both the western tower and the north chancel, 
dedicated to St. Edmund, and containing tombs 
of successive lords of East Lenham manor, are 
Perpendicular in style, and belong to the fourteenth 
or early part of the fifteenth century. Fragments 
of the fourteenth-century paintings, with which 
the walls of the whole church were once adorned, 



THE HONYWOODS 165 

may still be distinguished in places. Among 
them are the figures of a bishop, probably St. 
Augustine, and of St. Michael weighing souls, 
with devils trying to turn the balance in their 
favour, on one side, and on the other the crowned 
Virgin throwing her rosary into the scale which 
holds the souls of the just. The church was 
dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, and her image 
formerly occupied the niche in the timbered porch 
which, with the old lych-gate, are such fine 
specimens of fifteenth-century wood-work. The 
beautiful Jacobean pulpit was given by Anthony 
Honywood in 1622, and is charmingly carved 
with festoons of grapes and vine-leaves. The 
Honywoods also built the almshouses, with carved 
bargeboards and door-posts, in the street at 
Lenham, and an inscription in the chancel floor 
records the memory of that long-lived Dame, 
Mary Honywood, who before her death in 1620 
saw no less than three hundred and sixty-seven 
of her descendants ! 

Close to the church are the great tithe barns, 
built after the fire in the fourteenth century 
by the Abbots of St. Augustine. The largest 
II * 



l66 HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM 

measures 157 feet long by 40 feet wide, and, 
saving the low stone walls, is built entirely of 
oak from the forests of the Weald. The enormous 
timbers are as sound and strong to-day as they 
were six hundred years ago, and for solidity of 
material and beauty of construction, this Kentish 
barn deserves to rank among the grandest 
architectural works of the age. The monks 
are gone, and the proud Abbey itself has long 
been laid in ruins, but these buildings give us 
some idea of the wealth and resources of the 
great community who were the lords of Lenham 
during so many centuries. They could afford 
to lend a kindly ear to the prayer of the poor 
vicar when he humbly showed the poverty with 
which he had to contend, and the load of the 
burden that he had to bear. The Abbot, we 
are glad to learn, granted his request, and agreed 
to give him a roof over his head and to allow 
his two cows to feed with the monks' own herds 
in the pastures at Lenham, during the months 
between the feast of St. Philip and St. James and 
Michaelmas. 




IN CHARING VILLAGE. 



CHAPTER XI 



CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

From Lenham the Pilgrims' Road threads its 
lonely way along the hill-side, past one or two 
decayed farmhouses still bearing the name of 
the great families who once owned these manors 
— the Selves and the Cobhams ; and the view 
over the level country grows wider, and extends 

farther to the south and east, until we reach 

167 



l68 CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

Charing Hill, one of the highest points along 
this range of downs. The windmill, a few 
hundred yards above the track, commands a far- 
spreading view over the valley, stretching from 
the foot of the ridge to the Quarry Hills, where 
the towers of Egerton Church stand out on its 
steep mound above the hazy plains of the Weald. 
We look down upon Calehill, the home of the 
Darells for the last five centuries, and across the 
woods and park of Surrenden Bering, which has 
been held by the Bering family ever since the 
days of Earl Godwin, to the churches and villages 
of the Weald. Beyond a foreground of swelling 
hill and dale we see the flat expanse of Romney 
Marsh and Bungeness ; and then for the first 
time we catch a glimpse of a pale blue line of 
sea — that sea across which Roman and Saxon 
and Norman all sailed in turn to land upon the 
Kentish shore. On clear days you can see 
the Sussex downs in the far horizon beyond 
the Weald, and near Hastings, the hill of Fair- 
light rising sharply from the sea. Bown in the 
valley below, the tall tower of Charing Church 
lifts its head out of a confused mass of red roofs 



CHARING 169 

and green trees, with the ivy-grown ruins of the 
old palace at its feet. 

Many are the venerable traditions attached 
to the churches and villages which we have seen 
along our road through this pleasant land of 
Kent, but here is one older and more illustrious 
than them all. Here we have a record which 
goes back far beyond the days of Lanfranc and 
of Athelstan, and even that king of Mercia who 
gave Lenham to the Abbey of St. Augustine. 
For Charing, if not actually given, as the old 
legend says, by Vortigern to the ancient British 
Church, was at all events among the first lands 
bestowed on Augustine and his companions by 
Ethelbert, king of Kent. Saxon historians tell 
us how that this most ancient possession of the 
church of Canterbury was seized by Offa, king of 
Mercia, in 757, but restored again by his successor, 
Cenulph, in the year 788. 

Long before the Conqueror's time, the Arch- 
bishops had a house here. In Domesday Book, 
Charing is styled '' proprium manorium archie- 
piscopi," being reserved by those prelates for 
their private use, and from those days until 



lyo CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

the manor was surrendered by Cranmer to 
Henry VIII. it remained a favourite residence 
of the Archbishops. In the thirteenth century 
the Franciscan Archbishop John Peckham dates 
many letters from his house at Charing, and 
Stratford, as Dean Hook tells us, was often there, 
and found consolation in this quiet retreat for the 
troubles of those stormy days. Chichele, Kemp, 
and Bourchier were also frequently here. Stratford 
first obtained the grant of a three days' fair to 
be held at Charing twice a year, on the festivals 
of St. George and St. Luke. Leland tells us 
that Cardinal Morton made great buildings at 
Charing, and the red and black brickwork still 
to be seen under the ivy of the farm-house 
walls may be ascribed to him, but the great 
gateway with the chamber and hooded fireplace 
above, belongs to an earlier period, and was 
probably the work of Stratford in the fourteenth 
century. Some of the older stonework is to be 
found in the stables and cottages now occupying 
the site of the offices on the west of the court. 
The chapel, with its pointed arches and large 
windows, which in Hasted's time stood behind 



OVIJHAH'J 



170 tODMERSHAM 

the ma i^j Crannici tu 

Henr^- -oiirite residence 

of tl teenth century 

the ' kham dates 

ni 'iniT, and 

S there, 

n the 

Cemp, 

Stratford 

air to 

.e a year, on uic lestivals 

cHARiNcLuke. Leland tells us 

aade great buildings at 

iid black brickwork still 

ivy of the farm-house 

to him, bi great 

amber and hooded fireplace 

earlier period, and was 

ratford in the fourteenth 

ce older stonev to be 

four* and cottages now occupying 

■n the west of the court. 
me pointed arches and large 

win(i riasted's time stood behind 



A RELIC OF THE BAPTIST I7I 

the modern dwelling-house, was taken down eighty 
years ago, but the great dining-hall, with its 
massive walls and fine decorated window, still 
remains standing. This hall, where archbishops 
sat in state, and kingly guests were feasted ; 
where Henry VI I. was royally entertained by 
Archbishop Warham, on the 24th of March, 
1507, and where Henry VHI. stayed with all 
his train on his way to the Field of Cloth of 
Gold, is now used as a barn. But in its decay, 
it must be owned, the old palace is singularly 
picturesque. The wallflowers grow in golden 
clusters high up the roofless gables and along 
the arches of the central gateway ; masses of 
apple-blossom hang over the grey stone walls, 
and ring-necked doves bask in the sunshine on 
the richly coloured tiles of the old banqueting- 
hall. 

Close by is the church of Charing, famous in 
the eyes of mediaeval pilgrims for the possession 
of one hallowed relic, the block on which St. John 
the Baptist was beheaded, brought back, an old 
tradition says, by Richard Coeur de Lion from 
the Holy Land, and given by him to Archbishop 



172 CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

Baldwin, when the King paid his devotions 
at the shrine of St. Thomas. This precious 
relic went the way of all relics in the six- 
teenth century, and is not mentioned in the 
long list of costly vestments and frontals recorded 
in an inventory of Church property taken at 
Charing in 1552. But Charing Church is still, 
in the words of the old chronicler, " a goodly 
pile." It is cruciform in shape, and contains some 
traces of Early English work, but it is mostly 
of later date. The windows are interesting on 
account of their great variety. There are three 
narrow lancets, several of Transitional and Per- 
pendicular style, and one large and very remark- 
able square-headed Decorated window. The 
chapel of Our Lady, on the south side of the 
chancel, was built, towards the close of the 
fifteenth century, by Amy Brent, whose family 
owned the charming old manor-house of Wickens 
in this parish. The porch and fine tower, which 
forms so marked a feature in the landscape, 
was also chiefly built by the Brents, whose crest, 
a wyvern, is carved on the doorway, together 
with a rose encircled with sun-rays, the badge 



CHARING CHURCH I 73 

of Edward IV., in whose reign the work was 
completed. Through this handsome doorway the 
Archbishop, attended by his cross-bearers and 
chaplains, would enter from the palace-gate hard 
by, and many must have been the stately pro- 
cessions which passed under the western arch 
and wound up the long nave in the days of 
Morton and of Warham. A hundred years later 
Charing Church narrowly escaped entire destruc- 
tion. On the 4th of August, 1590, a farmer, one 
Mr. Dios, discharged a birding-piece at a pigeon 
roosting, as the pigeons do to this day, in the 
church tower, and " the day being extreme hot 
and the shingle very dry," a fire broke out in the 
night, and by morning nothing was left but the 
bare walls of the church, even the bells being 
melted by the heat of the fire. Happily the 
parishioners applied themselves with patriotic zeal 
to the restoration, and within two years the fine 
timber roof of the nave was completed. The 
date 1592, E.R. 34, is inscribed on the rafter 
above the chancel arch, while that of the chancel 
roof Ann. Dom. 1622, Anno Regni Jacobi xviii., 
appears on the beam immediately over the altar. 



174 CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

The Pilgrims' Way winds on through Charing 
past the noble church tower and the ancient 
palace wall, with its thick clusters of ivy and 
trailing wreaths of travellers' joy, through the 
lovely woods of Pett Place, the home of Hony- 
woods and Sayers for some hundreds of years. 
The track crosses the long avenue of stately limes 
which leads up to its gates, and through the 
meeting boughs we see the red gables and tall 
chimneys of the old Tudor house. In the 
fourteenth century the owners of Pett had a 
chapel of their own, served by a priest whose 
name appears in the Lambeth Register and other 
records as holding the living of Pette-juxta- 
Charing ; and Geoffery de Newcourt, who owned 
this manor, together with the adjoining one of 
Newcourt, paid the king an aid on his lands of 
Pett, when the Black Prince was knighted. A 
pleasant part of the track this is, dear to botanists 
for the wealth of ferns, flowers, and rare orchises 
which grow along the shady path ; pleasant alike 
in May, when cowslips and violets grow thick 
in the grass and the nightingales are in full 
song, and in June, when the ripe red fruit of the 



WESTWELL 175 

wild strawberries peep out from under the moss 
and the hawthorns are in bloom, but perhaps 
best of all in autumn, when the beeches are 
crimson and the maples in the hedges are one 
fire of gold. 

For the next three miles, the way lies through 
the lower part of the great woods of Long Beech, 
which stretch all over these hills, and which 
from very early times belonged to the see of 
Canterbury. It brings us out at Westwell, close 
to another extremely interesting church, dating 
from the middle of the thirteenth century, and 
almost entirely of one period. The graceful steeple, 
nave, chancel, and aisles, are all Early English, 
but the most striking feature is the high open 
colonnade which forms the rood-screen. The 
effect of the chancel, with its side arcade, its 
groined roof, and beautiful lancet window filled 
with richly-coloured old glass, seen through these 
three lofty arches, is very imposing. There is 
another curious fragment of stained glass, bearing 
the arms of Queen Anne of Bohemia and of 
Edward the Confessor and his wife, in the north 
aisle, and the chancel contains six stone walls 



176 CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

and a stone seat with a pointed arch, which were 
formerly used by the monks and prior of Christ 
Church, Canterbury. For the manor of Westwell, 
like so many others in this neighbourhood, be- 
longed to the see of Canterbury before the 
Conquest, and at the division of property effected 
by Lanfranc was retained by the Priory. Its 
revenues were allotted to the supply of the monks' 
refectory, ad cibiini eoritni, just as the tithes of 
Lenham were used to provide meals for St. 
Augustine's Abbey. 

Half a mile above Westwell Church the 
Pilgrims' Way reaches the gates of Eastwell. 
Here the track disappears for a time, but old 
maps show the line which it took across the 
southern slopes of the park, which extends for 
many miles, and is famous for the wild beauty 
of its scenery. The hills we have followed so 
long run through the upper part of the park, 
and magnificent are the views of the sea and 
Sussex downs which meet us in these forest 
glades, where stately avenues of beech and oak 
and chestnut throw long shadows over the grass, 
and antlered deer start up from the bracken at 





N 



EASTWELL I // 

our feet. But the lower slopes are pleasant too, 
with the venerable yews and thorns and horn- 
beams dotted over the hill-side, and the heights 
above clad with a wealth of mingled foliage which 
is reflected in the bright waters of the still, clear 
lake. The old ivy-grown church stands close to 
the water's edge, and contains some fine tombs 
of the Earls of Winchelsea, and of their ancestors, 
the Finches. But the traveller will look with 
more interest on the sepulchral arch which is said 
to cover the ashes of the last of the Plantagenets. 
The burial registers indeed record that Richard 
Plantagenet, the illegitimate son of Richard III., 
died at Eastwell on the 22nd of December, 1550, 
and a well, which goes by the name of Plan- 
tagenet's Well, marks the site of the cottage 
where he lived in confinement after the defeat of 
his father on Bosworth Field. Eastwell House, 
for some years the residence of H.R.H. the Duke 
of Edinburgh, was originally built by Sir Thomas 
Moyle, Speaker of the House of Commons in 
the reign of Henry VHI., but has been completely 
altered and modernised since it passed into the 
Winchelsea family. Leaving it on our left, we 
12 



lyS CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

come out of the Park at Boughton Lees, a group 
of houses on a three-cornered green, and follow 
in the steps of the old track to Boughton Aluph 
church, a large cruciform building with a spacious 
north aisle and massive central tower, standing 
in a very lonely situation. 

Boughton, called Bocton or Boltune in former 
times, belonged to Earl Godwin and his son 
Harold, before the Conquest, after which it was 
given to Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, and formed 
part of Juliana de Leybourne's vast inheritance. 
It took the name of Aluph from a Norman knight, 
Aluphus de Bocton, who held the manor in the 
reign of King John, and became thus distinguished 
from the other parishes of Boughton in the 
neighbourhood. From the church a grassy lane, 
shaded by trees, ascends the hill to Challock 
on the borders of Eastwell Park, and is pro- 
bably the old track of the Pilgrims' Way which 
passed between these woods and the park of 
Godmersham. This was formerly the property 
of Jane Austen's brother, who took the name of 
Knight on succeeding to the estate, but it has 
now passed into the hands of another family. 



GODMERSHAM CHURCH I79 

Until the Dissolution the manor and church of 
Godmersham belonged to Christ Church, and 
here, in mediaeval days, the priors of the convent 
had a fine manor-house, where they frequently 
resided during the summer months. The hall 
was pulled down in 1810, and nothing of the 
old house is now left except a gable and door- 
way, adorned with a figure of a Prior wearing 
his mitre and holding his crozier in his hand, 
probably intended for Henry de Estria, the 
Prior who rebuilt the manor-house in 1290. 
The church of Godmersham is remarkable for 
its early tower and curious semicircular apse 
with small Norman lights, which are evidently 
remains of an older building, and in the church- 
yard are some very ancient yews, one of 
which is said to have been planted before the 
Conquest. 

~ Under the shadow of these venerable trees 
there sleeps a remarkable woman, Mary Sybilla 
Holland, whose father was at one time Vicar of 
Godmersham, and afterwards moved to Harbledown, 
a larger parish near Canterbury, a few miles 
further along the Pilgrims' Way. Both Mrs. 



l8o CHARING TO GODMERSHAM 

Holland and her distinguished brother, the 
lamented Sir Alfred Lyall, retained a lifelong 
affection for this corner of East Kent. When 
Lyall was far away in India, ruling over millions 
of British subjects, in the north-west provinces, 
his verses tell us how passionately he yearned 
for his old Kentish home. 



" Ah ! that hamlet in Saxon Kent, 

Shall I find it when I come home ? 
With toil and travelling well-nigh spent, 
Tired with life in jungle and tent, 

Eastward never again to roam. 
Pleasantest corner the world can show 

In a vale which slopes to the English sea — 
Where strawberries wild in the woodland grow, 
And the cherry-tree branches are bending low, 

No such fruit in the South countree." 



Sir Alfred died on the loth of April, 191 1, 
at Lord Tennyson's house at Farringford, in 
the Isle of Wight, and was buried in the 
churchyard of St. Michael's, Harbledown. Now 
brother and sister are both sleeping under the 
grassy sod of the Kentish land which they 
loved so well, " where the nightingales sing 



WHERE NIGHTINGALES SING 



l8l 



heart-piercing notes in the silence of the early 
summer night." 

" Shelter for me and for you, my friend, 
There let us settle when both are old, 
And whenever I come to my journey's end, 
There you shall see me laid, and blend 
Just one tear with the falling mould." 








r^-'^ .<X 







THE PALACE, WROTHAM. 



12 




-^f-.^J^.''! 



Jf 






CHILHAM. 



CHAPTER XII 

CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

The Pilgrims' Way skirted the wooded slopes of 

Godmersham Park for about a mile, and then 

entered Chilham Park. The park is now closed, 

but the old track lay right across the park, and 

in front of Chilham Castle. The position of this 

fortress, overlooking the valley of the Stour, has 

made it memorable in English history. Chilham 

has been in turn a Roman camp, a Saxon castle, 

and a Norman keep, and has played an event- 

182 



CHILHAM 183 

ful part in some of the fiercest struggles of those 
days. According to a generally received tradition 
recorded by Camden, Chilham was the scene of 
the battle on the river in Caesar's second expedition ; 
and the British barrow near the Stour, popularly 
known as Julaber's Grave, was believed to be the 
tomb of the Roman tribune, Julius Laberius, 
although, as a matter of fact, it contains no 
sepulchral remains. In the second century Chilham 
is said to have been the home of that traditional 
personage, the Christian King Lucius, and in 
Saxon days of the chief Cilia. The castle was 
strongly fortified to resist the invasion of the 
Danes, by whom it was repeatedly attacked. 
After the Norman Conquest it belonged to Fulbert 
de Dover, whose last descendant, Isabel, Countess 
of Atholl, died here in 1292, and is buried in the 
under-croft at Canterbury. Then it passed into 
the hands of the great Lord Badlesmere, of Leeds, 
who on one occasion gave Queen Isabel, the wife 
of Edward II., a splendid reception here, and 
afterwards astonished the peaceful citizens and 
monks of Canterbury by appearing at their gates, 
followed by nineteen armed knights, each with a 



184 CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

drawn sword in his hand, to pay his devotions 
at the shrine of St. Thomas. As late as the 
sixteenth century Leland describes Chilham Castle 
as beautiful for pleasure, commodious for use, 
and strong for defence ; but soon after he wrote 
these words, the greater part of the old house 
was pulled down by its owner, Sir Thomas Cheney, 
Warden of the Cinque Ports under Edward VI., 
to complete his new mansion in the Isle of Sheppey. 
The Norman keep, an octagonal fortress three 
stories high, is the only part of the mediaeval 
structure that now remains, and can still be seen 
in the gardens of the new house built in 1616 
by Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls in 
the reign of James I. This fine Jacobean manor- 
house stands well on the rising ground above the 
river, and both the garden terrace and the top 
of the old keep afford beautiful views of the vale 
of Ashford and the downs beyond the Wye. Still 
more picturesque is the market-place of Chilham 
itself. On one side we have the red brick walls 
and white stone doorway of the castle, seen at the 
end of its short avenue of tall lime trees on the 
other the quaint red roofs and timbered houses 



BIGBERRY CAMP 185 

of the charming old square, with the grey church 
tower surrounded by the brilliant green of syca- 
mores and beeches. On a bright spring morning, 
when the leaves are young and the meadows along 
the river-side are golden with buttercups, there 
can be no prettier picture than this of the old 
market square of Cilia's home. 

From the heights of Chilham the Pilgrims' 
Way descends into the valley of the Stour, and 
after following the course of the river for a short 
time, climbs the opposite hill and strikes into 
Bigberry Wood. Here we come suddenly upon 
the most ancient earthwork along the whole line 
of the road, an entrenchment which Professor Boyd 
Dawkins, who explored it thoroughly some years 
ago, has ascribed to the prehistoric Iron Age. 
For most of us, perhaps, Bigberry Camp has a 
still greater interest as the fort which the Britons 
held against the assault of the Roman invaders, 
and which was stormed and carried by Caesar's 
legions. The memory of that desperate fight, 
which sealed the fate of Britain and her conquest 
by the great Proconsul, still lingers in the popular 
mind, and the shepherd who follows his flock and 



l86 CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

the waggoner who drives his team along the road, 
still talk of the famous battle that was fought 
here two thousand years ago. 

After this the path crosses the valley and 
runs through the hop-gardens to join Watling 
Street — the road by which Chaucer's pilgrims 
came to Canterbury — at Harbledown. This is 
the little village on the edge of the forest of 
Blean, which has been immortalised by Chaucer's 
lines — 

" Wist ye not where standeth a little toun 
Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down, 
Under the Blee in Canterbury way." 

And Bob-up-and-down is to this day a true and 
characteristic description of the rolling ground 
by which we approach Harbledown. Here the 
Pilgrims' Road, along which we have journeyed 
over hill and dale, fails to rise again. We climb 
the last hill, and on the summit of the rising 
ground we find ourselves close to the lazar-house 
founded at Harbledown by Lanfranc in 1084. 
The wooden houses built by the Norman Arch- 
bishop for the reception of ten brothers and seven 
sisters have been replaced by a row of modern 



HARBLEDOWN 



187 




ChATlViam M 



ON THE VILLAGE GREEN, CHARTHAM. 

almshouses ; but the chapel still preserves its 
old Norman doorway, and the round arches and 
pillars of an arcade to the north of the nave, 
which formed part of the hospital church dedicated 
by Lanfranc to St. Nicholas. The devout pilgrim 
to St. Thomas's shrine never failed to visit this 
ancient leper-house. Not only did the antiquity 
of the charitable foundation and its nearness to 
the road attract him, but in the common hall 
of the hospital a precious relic was preserved in 
the shape of a crystal which had once adorned 



l88 CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

the leather of St. Thomas's shoe. Many were the 
royal personages and distinguished strangers who 
paused before these old walls and dropped their 
alms into the poor leper's outstretched hand. 
Here, we read in contemporary records, Henry H. 
came on his first memorable pilgrimage to the 
tomb of the martyred Archbishop, and Richard 
Cceur de Lion after his release from his long 
captivity. Edward I. stopped at Harbledown 
with his brave Queen, Eleanor of Castille, on 
their return from the Holy Land, and the Black 
Prince, accompanied by his royal captive, King 
John of France, and that monarch's young son 
Philip, also visited the leper-house. And when 
the French king visited Canterbury for the second 
time, on his return to his own kingdom, he did 
not forget to stop at Lanfranc's old lazar-house 
and leave ten gold growns " pour les nonnains de 
Harbledoun." But it is a later and more sceptical 
traveller, Erasmus, who has left us the most vivid 
description of Harbledown and of the feelings 
which the sight of the relic aroused in the heart 
of his companion. Dean Colet. " Not far from 
Canterbury, at the left-hand side of the road," 



COLET AND ERASMUS 189 

he writes, in the record of his pilgrimage, " there 
is a small almshouse for old people, one of whom 
ran out, seeming to hear the steps of the horses. 
He first sprinkled us with holy water, and then 
offered us the upper leather of a shoe bound in 
a brass rim, with a crystal set in its centre like 
a jewel. Gration (Dean Colet) rode on my left 
hand, nearer to the beggar man, and was duly 
sprinkled, bearing it with a tolerable amount of 
equanimity. But when the shoe was handed up, 
he asked the old man what he wanted. ' It is 
the shoe of St. Thomas,' was the answer. Upon 
this he fired up, and turning to me, exclaimed 
indignantly, ' What ! do these cattle mean we 
should kiss the shoes of every good man?'" 
Erasmus, sorry for the old man's feelings, 
dropped a small coin into his hand, which made 
him quite happy, and the two pilgrims rode on to 
London, discussing the question of the worship 
of relics as they went. To this day a maple 
bowl, bound with a brass rim, containing a 
piece of crystal, is preserved in the hospital at 
Harbledown, the self-same relic, it may be, 
which was shown to Erasmus and Colet, and 



IQO CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

which Lambarde, writing half a century later, 
describes as " faire set in copper and chrystall " ; 
while an old wooden box, with a slit in the lid 
for money, and a chain attached to it, is said 
to be the one into which Erasmus dropped his 
coin. 

Behind the ivy-mantled tower of Lanfranc's 
chapel is a clear spring which was supposed to 
possess healing virtues, and is still believed by 
the country folks to be of great benefit to the eyes. 
This spring still goes by the name of the Black 
Prince's Well, from an old tradition that the 
warrior of Crecy and Poitiers drank of its waters 
when he visited the hospital at Harbledown in 
1357. Many, we know, are the memorials of 
this popular hero at Canterbury. Only three 
days after he landed at Sandwich he came, 
accompanied by his royal captive, to return thanks 
at St. Thomas's shrine for his victories, and six 
years afterwards he founded and decorated the 
beautiful chantry in the Cathedral crypt, which 
still bears his name, on the occasion of his 
marriage with his cousin Joan, the Fair Maid 
of Kent. The old legend of the Black Prince's 



THE CATHEDRAL IN SIGHT I9I 

Well goes on to tell how, when he lay dying of 
the wasting disease which carried him off in the 
flower of his life, he thought of the wonder- 
working spring near Canterbury, and sent to 
Harbledown for a draught of its pure waters. 
But even that could not save him, and on the 
29th of September, 1376, a stately funeral pro- 
cession wound its way down the hill-side at 
Harbledown, bearing the Black Prince to the 
grave which he had chosen for himself in the 
Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft at Canter- 
bury. 

I At Harbledown the pilgrims caught their first 
sight of the Cathedral ; here they fell on their 
knees when they saw the golden angel on the 
top of the central tower, and knew that the goal 
of their pilgrimage was almost reached. Here 
Chaucer's goodly company made their last halt, 
and for the moment the noise of singing and 
piping and jingling of bells gave place to a 
graver and more solemn mood as the motley 
crowd of pilgrims pressed around, to hear this 
time not a Canterbury tale, but a sermon. Deep 
was the impression which that first sight of 



192 CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN 

Canterbury made upon Erasmus. The cold, 
critical scholar becomes eloquent as he describes 
the great church of St. Thomas rearing itself up 
into the sky with a majesty that strikes awe into 
every heart, and the clanging of bells which, 
thrilling through the air, salute the pilgrims from 
afar, To-day the great cross is gone from the 
Westgate, the shining archangel no longer blesses 
the kneeling pilgrim from the topmost steeple, but 
the same glorious vision of the great Cathedral 
rising with all its towers into the sky meets the 
eyes of the traveller who looks down on Canter- 
bury from the hill of Harbledown. 



T2ilV/-HTU0i aHT MO>ii M.P.adHTJ.O v>iuaaaTviAD 



102 CHIL RBLEDOWN 

L smus. The cold, 

CMiiL ' '^ he describes 

the ^ '^ itself up 

into -we into 

ever vhich, 

tl- from 

.lie 

'! esses 

e topi ut 

f the great Cathedral 

s into the sky meets the 

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM'THIi; SOUlH-WEST ,-j (^anter- 

..UiwUQWIi. 




S>T Nkliolas' Harlileiiovvn M 



ST. NICHOLAS', HARBLEDOWN. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

From Harbledown it is all downhill to Canterbury, 
and a short mile brings us to the massive round 
tower of Simon of Sudbury's noble Westgate, 
the only one remaining of the seven fortified 
gateways which once guarded the ancient city. 
Many are the pilgrims who have entered Canter- 
bury by this gate : kings and queens of all ages, 
foreign emperors and princes, armed knights 
13 193 



194 HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

and humble scholars, good Queen Philippa and 
Edward Plantagenet, Henry of Agincourt, Mar- 
garet of Anjou, Chaucer and Erasmus. Many, 
too, are the long processions which have wound 
down this hill-side : newly created archbishops 
followed by a brilliant train of bishops and 
courtiers on their way to be enthroned in the 
chair of St. Augustine; solemn funerals, attended 
with all the pomp and circumstance, the funeral 
plumes and sable trappings, with which men 
honour the mighty dead. Through the West- 
gate went forth that gay company of monks and 
friars, of merchants and citizens crowned with 
garlands of flowers, and making joyous minstrelsy, 
as they rode out to welcome Archbishop Winchel- 
sea, who, once a poor student in the school at 
Canterbury, now came to be enthroned in state 
in the presence of King Edward I. and all his 
court. And this way, too, they bore him with 
much state and pomp, eighteen years later, from 
the manor-house at Otford, where he died, to 
sleep in his own Cathedral after all the labours 
and struggles, the storms and changes of his 
troublous reign. 




THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY. 



MEMORIES OF BECKET I95 

Since these mediaeval days Canterbury has 
seen many changes. The splendours of which 
Camden and Leland wrote have passed away, the 
countless number of its churches has been re- 
duced, and their magnificence no longer strikes 
the eye of the stranger. The lofty walls and 
their twenty-one watch-towers, which encircled 
the city in a complete ring when Chaucer's knight, 
after paying his devotion at the shrine of St. 
Thomas, went out to see their strength, and 
"pointed to his son both the perill and the 
doubt," are all gone, and the Conqueror's mighty 
castle is turned into a coal-pit. But the old city 
is still full of quaint corners and picturesque 
buildings, timbered houses with carved corbels 
and oriel windows, hostelries with overhanging 
eaves and fantastic sign-boards of wrought-iron 
work, hospitals whose charters date from Norman 
times, and whose records give us many a curious 
peep into the byways of mediaeval life. 

As we draw near the Martyr's shrine, memories 
of St. Thomas crowd upon us. The hill outside 
the Westgate, now occupied by the Clergy Orphan 
School, is still called St. Thomas's Hill, and was 



196 HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

formerly the site of a chapel founded by Becket 
himself. A little way up the High Street we 
reach a bridge over the Stour, which winds its 
way through the heart of the city, and a low 
pointed doorway on our right leads into St. 
Thomas's Hospital. This ancient Spittle of East 
Bridge was founded, as a fourteenth-century 
charter records, by the " glorious St. Thomas the 
Martyr, to receive poor wayfaring men." Arch- 
bishop Hubert Walter increased its endowments 
in the twelfth century, and Stratford repaired the 
walls in the fourteenth, and drew up statutes for 
its government. From that time it was especi- 
ally devoted to the use of poor pilgrims, for 
whom twelve beds were provided, and whose 
wants were supplied at the rate of fourpence a 
day. During those days, when the enthusiasm 
for St. Thomas was at its height, alms and 
legacies were lavished upon Eastbridge Hospital, 
and Edward HI. bequeathed money to support 
a chaplain, whose duty it was to say daily masses 
for the founders of the hospital. After the days 
of pilgrimages were over, this hospital was applied 
to various uses until Archbishop Whitgift re- 



EASTBRIDGE HOSPITAL I97 

covered the property and drew up fresh statutes 
for its management. Ten poor brothers and 
sisters still enjoy the fruit of St. Thomas's bene- 
volence, and dwell in the old house built on 
arches across the bed of the river. The low level 
of the floor, which has sunk far below that of 
the street, and the vaulted roof and time-worn 
pillars, bear witness to its great antiquity. There 
can be little doubt that the round arches of the 
Norman crypt belong to St. Thomas's original 
foundation, while the pointed windows of the 
chapel and Early English arches of the refectory 
form part of Archbishop Stratford's improvements. 
In this hall some portions of frescoes, representing 
on the one hand the Last Supper, on the other 
the Martyrdom of the Saint, the penance of 
Henry II. at his tomb, with the central figure 
of Christ in Glory, have been lately recovered 
from under the coat of whitewash which had 
concealed them for more than two centuries. 

Twice a year, we know, at the summer festival 

of the Translation of St. Thomas, on the 7th of 

July, and at the winter festival of the Martyrdom, 

on the 29th of December, Canterbury was crowded 

13* 



198 HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

with pilgrims, and a notice was placed in the 
High Street ordering the due provision of beds 
and entertainment for strangers. The concourse 
was still greater on the jubilees of the Trans- 
lation, when indulgences were showered freely 
on all who visited the shrine, and the festival 
lasted for a whole fortnight. At the jubilee of 
the year 1420, just after the victory of Agincourt, 
no less than a hundred thousand pilgrims are 
said to have been present. On such occasions 
every available corner was occupied ; the inns, 
which were exceedingly numerous, the hospitals, 
and, above all, the religious houses, were thronged 
with strangers. The most favourite, the most 
renowned, of all the hostelries was the Chequers 
of the Hope, the inn where Chaucer's twenty-nine 
pilgrims took up their quarters. 

" At Chekers of the Hope that every man doth know." 

This ancient inn, which Prior Chillenden rebuilt 
about 1400, stood at the corner of High Street 
and Mercery Lane, the old Merceria, which was 
formerly lined with rows of booths and stalls for 
the sale of pilgrimage tokens, such as are to be 



CANTERBURY BELLS I99 

found in the neighbourhood of all famous shrines. 
Both ampullas, small leaden bottles containing 
a drop of the martyr's blood, which flowed peren- 
nially from a well in the precincts, and Caput 
Thomse, or brooches bearing the saint's mitred 
head, were eagerly sought after by all Canterbury 
pilgrims. So too were the small metal bells 
which are said to have given their name to the 
favourite Kentish flower, the Canterbury bell. 
And we read that the French king, John, stopped 
at the Mercery stalls to buy a knife for the 
Count of Auxerre. The position of the inn 
close to the great gate of Christ Church natur- 
ally attracted many visitors, and the spacious 
cellars with vaulted roofs, which once belonged 
to the inn, may still be seen, although the inner 
courtyard and the great chamber upstairs occu- 
pied by the pilgrims, and known as the Dormitory 
of Hundred Beds, were burnt down forty years 
ago. But the old street front, with its broad 
eaves overhanging the narrow lane leading up to 
the great gateway at the other end, still remains, 
and renders Mercery Lane the most picturesque 
and interesting corner of the Cathedral city. 



200 HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

The religious houses were open to all comers, 
and while royal visitors were lodged in St. 
Augustine's Abbey, the convents of the Mendi- 
cant orders were largely frequented by the poorer 
classes. There was also the house of the White- 
friars or Augustinians in the eastern part of the 
town, close to St. George's Gate, and the hospital 
of St. John in the populous Northgate, " that 
faire and large house of stone," built and endowed 
by Lanfranc in the eleventh century, besides 
that of Eastbridge, which has been already men- 
tioned, and many other smaller foundations. 

But it was in the great Priory of Christ 
Church that by far the largest number of pilgrims 
found hospitable welcome. A considerable part 
of the convent buildings was set aside for their 
reception. The Prior himself entertained dis- 
tinguished strangers, and lodged them in the 
splendid suite of rooms overlooking the convent 
garden, known as the Omers or Homers — Les 
Ormeaux — from a neighbouring grove of elms. 
This range of buildings, including the banqueting- 
hall, generally known as " Meister Omers," was 
broken up into prebendal houses after the Dis- 



CHRIST CHURCH PRIORY 201 

solution, and supplied three separate residences 
for members of the new Chapter, which gives us 
some idea of the size of these lodgings. For 
ordinary strangers there was the Guest Hall, near 
the kitchen, on the west side of the Prior's Court, 
which was under the especial charge of a cellarer 
appointed to provide for the needs of the guests. 
Prior Chillenden, whom Leland describes as '' the 
greatest builder of a Prior that ever was in Christ 
Church," repaired and enlarged this Strangers' 
Hall early in the fifteenth century, and added a 
new chamber for hospitality, which bore the name 
of Chillenden's Guest Chamber, and now forms 
part of the Bishop of Dover's house. Finally, 
without the convent precincts, close to the court 
gateway, where the beautiful Norman stairway 
leads up to the Great Hall, or Aula Nova, was 
the Almonry. Here the statutes of Archbishop 
Winchelsea — he who had known w^hat it was to 
hunger and thirst in his boyhood, and who re- 
mained all through his greatness the friend of 
the poor — provided that poor pilgrims and beggars 
should be fed daily with the fragments of bread 
and meat, "which were many and great," left on 



202 HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY 

the monks' tables, and brought here by the 
wooden pentise or covered passage leading from 
the kitchen. This Almonry became richly en- 
dowed by wealthy pilgrims in course of years, 
and early in the fourteenth century Prior Henry 
of Estria built a chapel close by, which was 
dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr, and much 
frequented by pilgrims. The Almony was turned 
into a mint-yard at the Dissolution, and the 
chapel and priests' lodgings attached to it, now 
belong to the King's School. Another privilege 
freely conceded by the prior and monks of this 
great community to pilgrims of all ranks and 
nationality who might die at Canterbury, was 
that of burial within the precincts of Christ 
Church, close to the blessed martyr's shrine, and 
under the shadow of the Cathedral walls. 




MERCERV LANE, CANTERBURY. 



[p. 199 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE martyr's shrine 

Erasmus has described the imposing effect of the 
great Cathedral church on the stranger who entered 
its doors for the first time, and saw the nave " in 
all its spacious majesty." The vision which broke 
upon the eyes of those pilgrims who, like himself 
and Dean Colet, visited Canterbury in the early 
years of the sixteenth century, may well have 
filled all hearts with wonder. For then the work 
was well-nigh perfected. The long roll of master- 
builders, from Prior Wibert and De Estria to 
Chillenden and Sellyng, had faithfully accom- 
plished their task. Prior Goldstone, the last but 
one who reigned before the Dissolution, had just 
completed the central tower, the great labour of 
his predecessor Prior Sellyng's life, and was 

in the act of building the noble Perpendicular 

203 



204 THE martyr's SHRINE 

gateway which forms a fitting entrance to the 
precincts. 

And now the great church stood complete. 
Without, "a very goodly, strong, and beautiful 
structure " : the traceries and mouldings of the 
windows, the stone canopies and sculptured images 
of the portal, all perfect ; the glorious towers in 
their might ; Bell Harry Steeple, as we see it 
to-day, matchless in its strength and beauty ; 
and beside it, rivalling its grace and majesty, the 
ancient Norman tower, which bore the name of 
Ethelbert, crowned with the Arundel spire. 
Within, a richness and splendour to which our 
eyes are wholly unaccustomed : chapels and 
chantries lining the great nave, fresh from Prior 
Chillenden's work ; altars glittering with lighted 
tapers and gold and silver ornaments ; roof and 
walls bright with painting and gilding, or decked 
with silken tapestry hangings ; carved images 
covered with pearls and gems ; stained windows 
throwing their hues of ruby and sapphire across 
the floor, and lighting up the clouds of incense 
as they rose heavenward. All this, and much 
more, met the pilgrims' wondering eyes. No 




\ 



THE MARTYRDOM, CANTKRIJURV CATHliURAL. 



[p. 205 



WITHIN THE CATHEDRAL 20$ 

wonder they stood " half amazed," as the Supple- 
mentary Tale to Chaucer's Pilgrimage describes 
'' the gardener and the miller and the other lewd 
sets," gazing up at the painted windows, and 
forgetting to move on with the crowd. 

Then the show began. First of all the 
pilgrims were led up a vaulted passage and 
" many steps " to the Transept of the Martyrdom, 
where the wooden altar, at the foot of which the 
saint fell, remained to show the actual place of 
the murder, and its guardian priest — the Ctistos 
Martyrmn — displayed the rusty sword of Richard 
le Breton. Next, descending the flight of steps 
on the right, they were led into the dark crypt, 
where more priests received them, and presented 
the saint's skull, encased in silver, to be kissed, 
and other relics, including the famous girdle and 
hair-shirt. This Caput ThomcE was one of the 
chief stations at which offerings were made, and 
the altar on which it lay, mentioned in the Black 
Prince's will as " the altar where the head is," 
marked the site of the original grave where the 
saint was buried by the frightened monks on 
the day after the murder. The tomb stood in the 



206 THE martyr's SHRINE 

eastern chapel of Ernulfs crypt, under the beautiful 
Pointed arches afterwards raised by that great 
architect, William the Englishman, whom Gervase 
describes as " small in body, but in workmanship 
skilled and honest." Soon it acquired a miraculous 
virtue, and the fame of the cures and wonders 
wrought there rang throughout the world. It 
was the scene of Henry II. 's penance, and during 
the next fifty years it remained the central object 
of interest to the crowds of pilgrims who came 
from all parts of Christendom. Coeur de Lion, 
accompanied by William, King of Scotland, knelt 
here on his way to the Crusades, to implore the 
martyr's blessing on his arms. Many were the 
Crusaders from all parts of France and England 
who came thither on the same errand. King 
John and his wife Isabella, who were crowned at 
Canterbury Cathedral by Archbishop Hubert 
Walter, at Easter, 1201, offered their coronation 
canopies at this tomb and vast sums of money 
were yearly offered here until 1220, when the 
body of St. Thomas was translated, in the 
presence of the young King Henry HI., to 
the new Shrine in Trinity Chapel, immediately 



GLORY OF THE SHRINE 207 

above the tomb in the crypt. In that year the 
offerings at the tomb, at the Altar of the Sword's 
Point, and at the new Shrine, reached the 
enormous amount of £^i,o^i, a sum equal to 
more than ;^20,ooo of money at the present 
time. After this, the offerings at the original 
tomb in the crypt diminished in number and 
value, but the altar and relics of the Caput 
ThomcE remained an object of deep reverence until 
the Reformation. 

From the dark vaults of the subterranean 
church the pilgrims were led up the steps to the 
north aisle of the choir. Here the great mass 
of relics, including St. George's arm and no less 
than four hundred skulls, jaws, teeth, hands, and 
other bones, were displayed in gold, silver, or 
ivory caskets, and pilgrims were allowed a glimpse 
of the magnificent vessels and ornaments stored 
up under the high altar. " All the gold of Midas 
and Croesus," exclaims Erasmus, " would have 
been nothing by the side of these treasures ! " and 
he confesses that he sighed to think he kept no such 
relics at home, and had to beg the saint's pardon 
for this very unholy emotion. The golden candle- 



2b8 THE martyr's SHRINE 

sticks and silken vestments of the sacristy in 
St. Andrew's tower, and the saint's pallium, 
which no ordinary pilgrims might see, were also 
shown to Erasmus and Colet, who brought with 
them a letter of introduction from Archbishop 
Warham. 

After duly inspecting these precious objects, 
they mounted the long flight of steps behind the 
high altar leading into Trinity Chapel ; a con- 
tinual ascent, *' church, as it were, piled upon 
church," which seems to have greatly heightened 
the impression produced upon the awe-struck 
pilgrims. Now at last they stood within the holiest 
of holies. There, before their eyes, was the goal 
of all their journeyings, the object of their deepest 
devotion, the Shrine which held the body of the 
blessed martyr. 

The Shrine itself, covered by a painted canopy 
of wood, rested on stone arches in the centre of 
the floor, exactly under the gilded crescent which 
is still to be seen in the Cathedral roof. On 
the right was the richly carved and canopied 
monument of Henry IV. and his Queen, Joan of 
Navarre, with its elaborate effigies of the royal 







14 



210 THE MARTYR S SHRINE 

pair wearing their crowns and robes of state ; on 
the left the tomb of Edward the Black Prince. 
He had willed to sleep before the altar of Our 
Lady of the Under-croft, in the chapel adorned 
by his own gifts, but the people who had loved 
him so well would not allow their hero to remain 
buried out of sight in the dark crypt. So they 
brought him to rest by the great saint's Shrine, 
where all men could see his effigy of gilded 
bronze as he lay there, clad in armour, his sword 
by his side, his hands clasped in prayer, and 
read the pathetic lines which tell of his departed 
glories, and bid the passing stranger pray for 
his soul : 

" Pur Dieu, priez au Celestien Roy, 
Que mercy ait de I'^me de moy." 

His was the first tomb that was ever raised in the 
sacred precincts devoted to the martyr's Shrine, 
and to this day it remains there, unhurt by the 
hand of time or the more cruel violence of man. 

Up the worn stone steps which still bear the 
marks left by thousands of feet and knees, the 
pilgrims climbed, murmuring words of prayer 



THE CROWN 211 

or chanting the popular Latin hymns to St. 
Thomas : 

"Tu, per Thomae sanguinem, 
Quern pro te impendit, 
Fac nos, Christe, scandere 
Quo Thomas ascendit." 

Here the Prior himself received them, and showed 
them first the corona or crown of Becket's head, 
preserved in a golden likeness of St. Thomas's 
face, ornamented with pearls and precious gems, 
which had been presented by Henry V. Then, 
at a given sign, the wooden canopy was drawn 
up by ropes, and the Shrine itself, embossed with 
gold and glittering with countless jewels that 
flashed and sparkled with light, was revealed to 
the eyes of the pilgrims. They all fell upon 
their knees and worshipped, while the Prior with 
his white wand pointed out the balass-rubies and 
diamonds, the sapphires and emeralds, which 
adorned the Shrine, and told the names of the 
royal persons by whom these gifts had been 
presented. There were rings and brooches and 
chains without end, golden and silver statues 
offered by kings and queens, the crown of Scotland 



212 THE MARTYR S SHRINE 

brought back by Edward I. after his victory over 
John Baliol, and the regale of France, that superb 
ruby presented at the tomb in the crypt by 
Louis VII., which shone like fire, and was as 
costly as a king's ransom. Full of awe and 
wonder the spectators gazed with admiring eyes 
on these treasures, which for beauty and splendour 
were beyond all they had ever dreamt, until the 
canopy slowly descended, and the Shrine was 
once more hidden from their sight. 

Then they went their way, some to visit the 
convent buildings, the noble chapter-house with 
its gabled roof and stained windows, and the 
glazed walk of the cloisters, glowing with bright 
colours and decorated with heraldic devices of 
benefactors to Christ Church painted on the 
bosses of the vaulting. Others made themselves 
fresh and gay, and went out to see the city, 
the Knight and his son to look at the walls, the 
Prioress and the Wife of Bath to walk in the 
herbary of the inn. 

But for Erasmus and his rather inconvenient 
companion there was still a sight in store, 
only reserved for very exalted personages, or 



"MORE THAN ROYAL SPLENDOUR 213 

such as had friends at court. Prior Goldstone, 
a gentle and well-bred man, not altogether 
ignorant, as Erasmus found, of the Scotian 
theology, himself took them back into the crypt, 
and lanterns were brought to illumine the dark 
vaults. By their light the Prior led the way 
into the church of Our Lady of the Under- 
croft, which was divided from the rest of the 
crypt by strong iron railings. Here the two 
friends saw what Erasmus might well call "a 
display of more than royal splendour." For 
here, surrounded by exquisitely carved stone- 
work screens and a beautiful reredos with deli- 
cate traceries and mouldings, richly coloured and 
gilt, was the altar of Our Lady, adorned with 
precious ornaments and twinkling with hundreds 
of silver lamps. There in the central niche, 
under a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, stood 
the famous silver image of the Blessed Virgin 
herself. And there was the jewelled tabernacle 
and frontal, with its picture of the Assumption 
worked in gold, and the chalice and cruets in 
the form of angels, and the great silver candelabra 
with which the Black Prince had enriched his 
14* 



214 THE MARTYR S SHRINE 

favourite shrine. There too were the costly- 
gifts and jewels presented by his son, Richard II., 
the gold brooches offered yearly by Edward I., 
the white silk vestments, diapered with a vine 
pattern of blue, bequeathed by the Black Prince, 
and countless other rare and precious things, 
which filled Erasmus with envy and wonder. 
But then, as ill luck would have it, the Prior 
conducted his guests into the sacristy, where on 
bended knees he opened a black leathern chest, 
out of which he produced a parcel of ragged 
handkerchiefs with which St. Thomas used to 
wipe his face. This was too much for Dean 
Colet's patience, already sorely tried as it had 
been by what he had seen and heard. When 
the gentle Prior offered him one of the filthy 
rags as a present, he shrank back in evident 
disgust, and turned up his nose with an expression 
of contempt which filled Erasmus with shame 
and terror. Fortunately the Prior was a man 
of sense and courtesy, so he appeared to take 
no notice, and after giving his guests a cup of 
wine, politely bade them farewell. 

' Before this Colet had alarmed his more timid 



SACRILEGE 215 

friend by the bold way in which he had dared 
to question the priest who guarded the gilded 
head. He had even gone so far as to remark 
aloud that the saint who was so charitable in 
his lifetime, would surely be better pleased if 
some trifling part of these riches were spent in 
relieving the poor and destitute. Upon which 
the monk had glared at him with Gorgon eyes, 
and, Erasmus felt sure, would have turned them 
out of the church forthwith, had it not been for 
Archbishop Warham's letter. 

^But in these words of the honest Dean 
we see a foreboding of the new and critical 
spirit that was fast undermining the old beliefs. 
Already the days of pilgrimages were numbered, 
and the glories of St. Thomas were on the wane. 
A few more years and the monks who guarded 
his treasures were rudely disturbed. The glorious 
Shrine was stripped of its priceless gems. The 
wrought gold and precious jewels were borne 
away in two enormous chests, such as six or 
seven men could barely lift. The wonderful 
ruby which flashed fire in the darkness was set 
in a ring and worn by King Harry himself on his 



2l6 THE martyr's SHRINE 

thumb. Finally, to complete the sacrilege, the 
relics of the Saint were publicly burnt and his 
ashes scattered to the winds. Only the broken 
pavement and the marks of the pilgrims' knees 
in the stone floor were left to show future genera- 
tions this spot, hallowed by the prayers and the 
worship of past ages. 



INDEX 



Abbotsworthy, 34 

Abbott, E., " St. Thomas of 

Canterbury," 11 note 
Abinger, 90 ; discovery of Roman 

remains at, 99 
Addington, cromlechs at, 146 
^thelred II., 153 
Agincourt, battle of, 198 
Albury, 18, 82 ; yew hedge, 84 ; 

church, 83 ; Downs, 80 ; view 

from, 80 ; Park, 80, 87 
Alexander III., Pope, 14 
Alfred, King. 21, 72 ; founds the 

Abbey of Hyde, 28 
Ahce Holt forest, 50 
Allen, Mr. Grant, 5 
Alresford, 35. 38; New, cloth 

frade at, 39 : result of the 

Civil Wars, 40 ; Old, 38 
Alton, 28, 50 
Anderida, forest of, 5 
Apulderfelde. Thomas de, efQgy 

of, 164 
Aragon, Katherine of, portrait 

of, 131 
Arle, ford of the, 38 
Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl 

of, 83 ; collector of the Arundel 

marbles, 83 ; portrait of, 83 
Ash, 54 
Ashburton, Lord, his famous 

Grange, 37 



Ashford, 127 ; vale of, 184 
Athelstan, 112, 134, 153. ^^9 
Atholl, Isabel, Countess of, 183 
Austen, Cassandra, 48 
Austen, Jane, 46 ; her cottage at 

Chawton, 48 ; novels, 48 ; mode 

of Hfe, 48 ; letters, 49 
Avington Park, 36 
Aylesford, 144 ; Common, 146 

Badlesmere, Lord, of Leeds, 183 

Baldwin, Archbishop, 172 

Bahol, John. 212 

Becket, St. Thomas, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, his murder. 7-9 ; 
championship for the rights of 
the Church, 9 ; journey to 
Canterbury, 9; miracles and 
cures wrought by, 10-12, 206 ; 
canonisation. 14; removal of 
his body, 15, 206 ; shrme, 16. 
208-212 ; fame, 16 ; his house 
at Otford, 129 ; legends. 131 : 
relics, 205, 207 

Beggars' Corner, 58 „ ^ „ 

Belloc, Hilaire, "The Old Road, 
vii 

Bentley Station, 52 

Betchworth Park, 98 

Bigberry Camp, 185 ; wood, 185 

Birinus, church of, 22 

Birling, 142 ; Place. 138 



217 



2l8 



INDEX 



Bishop Sutton, 43 
Black Prince, at Harbledown, 
188 ; memorials of, 190 ; death' 
191 ; tomb, 210 
Black Prince's Well, 190 
Blackdown, 80 

Blagge, Mistress, portrait of, 92 
Blean, forest of, 186 
Bletchingley, discovery of Roman 

remains at, 100 
Blois, Henry of, 24, 52 
Bocton, Aluphus de, 178 
Bohemia, Queen Anne of, the 

arms of, 175 
Boleyn, Anne, portrait of, 67 
Boniface. Archbishop. 143 
Boscawen, Mrs., her birthplace, 

132 
Botley Hill, 118 
Botolph. St., church of, 122 ; 

monuments, 122 
Boughton Aluph church, 178 
Boughton, Bocton or Boltune, 178 
Boughton Lees, 178 
Boughton Malherbe, 154 
Boulogne, Eustace. Count of, 178 
Box Hill, 94, 98 
Boxley, the Cistercian Abbey of, 

146 ; relics. 147 
Boxley. 151 ; church, 152 
Brabceuf Manor. 69 
Brabourne, Lord. 49 
Brent. Amy, 172 
Brighton Downs, 107 
Browne, Sir Richard, portrait of 

92 
Brydges, George, 36 
Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke 

oi, 37 
Buckland, 99 
Bunker's Farm, 142 
Bunyan, John. loi 
Burford, 96 



Burham church. 145 

Calehill, 168 
Calva, Ruald de, 77 
Camden. W.. 104. 195 
Canterbury, routes taken by pil- 
grims, 3-6, 20, 28 ; number of, 
16-18, 193, 198 ; characteris- 
tics, 195 ; the Chequers of the 
Hope Inn. 198 ; religious 
houses, 200 ; Priory of Christ 
Church. 200 ; the Omers or 
Homers, 200 ; Guest Hall, 201 ; 
the Almonry, 201 
Canterbury Cathedral, the murder 
of Becket in, 9 ; " the choir of 
Conrad " destroyed by fire, 14 ; 
rebuilt. 14; number of' pil- 
grims. 16-18. 193. 198 ; master- 
builders. 203 ; completion. 204 ; 
Transept of the Martyrdom.' 
205 ; reHcs, 205, 207 ; miracles 
and cures, 206 ; number of 
crusaders. 206 ; amount of 
offerings, 207 ; the Shrine, 208- 
212 ; the Church of Our Lady 
of the Undercroft, 213 
Challock, 178 

Chanctonbury Ring, 76, 107 
Chantrey, Sir F. L., his effigy of 

Lady Frederica Stanhope. 124 
Chantry Woods, 75 
Chantry Ford, 87 
Charing, 18 ; height of. 138 ; 
chapel. 170; church. 168, 171-^ 
173 ; traditions. 169 ; reUc in, 
171 ; destroyed by fire, 173 ; 
rebuilt, 173; fair at, 170; 
Hill, 168 ; manor, the residence 
of Archbishops, 170 
Charles I.. King. 53 ; Prayer 

Book used by, 94 
Charles II., King. 36 



INDEX 



219 



Charterhouse 80 

Chatham, Lord, his visits to 
Chevening, 122 

Chaucer, G., hnes from, 17, 186; 
his pilgrims, 61, 191 

Chawton, 46 

Cheney, Sir John, 158 

Cheney, Sir Thomas, 184 

Chequers of the Hope Inn, 198 

Cheriton battle, 41 

Chevening church, 122 ; monu- 
ments in, 122 ; manor, 121 ; 
Park, 121 ; village, 122 

Chilham Castle, 182-184 ; manor- 
house, 184 ; Park, 182 

Chillenden Prior, 198, 201 

Chilworth, 78 ; powder-mills, 78-80 

Ciderhouse Cottage, 75 ; J^ane, 75 

Clere, St., mansion, 132 

Cobbett, Richard, 54 

Cobbett, William, his " Rural 
Rides," 5, 35, 76, 78, 106, 109, 
152 ; his birthplace, 54 ; at 
Albury, 84; Godstone, 114 

Cold-harbour Green, 118 

Colet, Dean, at Harbledown, 188- 
190 ; his visit to Canterbury 
Cathedral, 208 ; in the Church 
of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 
213-215 ; treatment of the 
relics, 214 

CoUey Farm, 99 ; discovery of 
Roman remains at, 99 

Compton, 58, 63, 69 ; church, 63 

Copley, Sir Roger, 109 

Corby Castle, 30 

Courtenay, Archbishop, 143 

Crooksbury, heights of, 54 

St. Cross, Hospital of, 24 

Crowborough Beacon, 107 

Culpeper, Elizabeth, Lady, monu- 
ment to, 158 

Culpeper, John, Lord, the tapes- 



tries and altar-cloth worked by 
his daughters, 156 ; monument 
to, 158 

Culpeper, Sir Thomas, 159 

Cuxton ford, 141 

Dacre, Lord, 121. See Lennard 

Danefiield, 129 

Darent valley, 126 

Dartford, 126 

Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 185 

Day, Bishop, letter from, 68 

Deane, Archbishop, 130 

Deepdene Park, 98 

Denbies Park, 97 

Denmark, Anne of, 66 ; portrait 

of, 66 
Deptford, 3 

Detling, 152 ; height of, 138 
Digges, Sir Dudley, 184 
Dios, Mr., 173 
Dorking, 95, 97 
Dover, 3 

Dover, Fulbert de, 183 
Drummond, Mr., 83 
Dungeness, 168 
Diirer, Albert, 112 

East Grinstead, 107 
Eastbridge Hospital, 196 
Eastwell, 176 ; church, 177 ; 

House, 177; Park, 126 
Edinburgh, H.R.H. the Duke of, 

his residence Eastwell House, 

177 
Edward I., King, 26, 130, 142, 

212 ; at Harbledown, 188 
Edward II., King, 50 ; his visit 

to Boxley Abbey, 148 
Edward III., King, 196 
Edward IV., King, 173 
Edward VI., King, 105 ; portrait 

of, 67 



220 



INDEX 



Edward, the Black Prince, at Har- 
bledown, i88 ; memorials of, 
igo ; death, 191 ; tomb, 210 

Efl&ngham, Lady Howard of, 105 

Egbert, King, 33 

Egerton Church, 168 

Eleanor of Castille, Queen, 188 

Ehzabeth, Queen, 53 ; her visits 
to Loseley, 66 ; to Leeds 
Castle, 154 

EIliston-Erwood, Mr., " The Pil- 
grims' Road," vi 

Erasmus, at Harbledown, 188-190; 
his impressions of Canterbury 
Cathedral, 192, 203; on the 
rehcs, 207 ; in the Church of 
Our Lady of the Undercroft, 
213-215 

Estria, Prior Henry of, 179, 202 

Ethelbald, King of Wessex, 52 

Ethelred the Unready, 113 

Ethelwold, Bishop, 22 

Evelyn, John, 78, 84 ; his home 
at Wotton, 90 ; portrait, 92 

Evershed's Rough, 90 

Ewhurst Mill, 80 

Fairlawn House, 136 
Fairlight hill, 168 
Farnham, 52 ; Castle, 52 
Farrer, Sir Thomas, 100 
Farringford, 180 
Farthing copse, 77 
Fitz Urse, Reginald, 9 
Froyle Park, 52 

Gatton church, 1 1 1 ; House, 1 1 1 ; 

park, 108, 112 ; town hall, no 
George I., King, 121 
Gethin, Dame Grace, inscription 

on her monument, 159 
Gethin, Sir Richard, 159 
Gifiard, Lady, 56 



St. Giles' Hill, fair at, 31 

Godmersham, 50 ; church, 1 79 ; 
manor, 179; park, 178, 182 

Godstone, 114; The White Hart 
or Clayton Arms, 114 

Godwin, Earl, 168, 178 

Goldstone, Prior, 203, 213 

Gomshall station, 94 

Gravesend, 138 

Greenway Court, 157 

Greenwich, 3 

Gresham, Sir John, 119 

Gresham, Sir Marmaduke, 119 

Gresham, Sir Thomas, 119 ; foun- 
der of the Royal Exchange, 
119 ; portrait, 119 

Grey, Richard de, founds a Car- 
melite Priory, 145 

Grose, F., " Antiquities of Eng- 
land and Wales," 77 note 

Grove Court, 157 

Guildford, 3, 51, 57, 72 ; fair at, 

58 
Gurdon, Adam de, 45, 51 

Hackhurst Downs, 94 

Halfpenny Lane, 77 

Hailing, Lower, 142 ; Upper, 142 

Hampshire, 20 

Harbledown, 179, 186 ; leper- 
house, 186; relic in, 187; 
royal visitors, 198 ; first sight of 
Canterbury Cathedral from, 191 

Harrietsham, 160 ; church, monu- 
ments in, 161 

Hastings, 168 ; Battle of, 161 

Headbourne Worthy, 31 ; deri- 
vation of the name, 33 ; church, 

33 
Helix pomatia, 18 
Hengist, proclaimed the first king 

of Kent, 146 
Henry I., King, 29, 41 



INDEX 



221 



Henry II., King, his penance at 

Becket's tomb, 4, 14, 206 ; visit 

to the leper-house at Harble- 

down, 188 

Henry III., King, 16, 24, 52, 57, 

206 
Henry IV., King, monument of, 

208 
Henry V., King, 211 
Henry VI., King, 109, 161 
Henry VII., King, 158 ; liis visit 

to Charing, 171 
Henry VIII., King, 109, 129, 130 ; 
portrait of, 131 ; visit to Char- 
ing, 171 
Herault, Isaac, 94 
Hethe, Bishop Hamo de, 142 
Hindhead, 72, 76, 80, 107 
Hog's Back, 54, 57, 63, 76 
Holbein, Hans, 66 
Holland, Mary Sybilla, 179 
Hollingbourne, 152, 153 ; height 
of, 138 ; history, 153 ; church, 
monuments in the, 158 ; manor- 
house, 154 ; traditions, 154 
Holm Castle, 104. See Reigate 
Holmbury, 90 
Holmesdale, valley of, 104 
Honywood, Anthony, 165 
Honywood, Dame Mary, 165 
Horn Hatch, loi 
Home, Robert, Bishop of Win- 
chester, letter from, 68 
Hutton, W. H., " Thomas Bec- 

ket," 9 note 
Hyde, Abbey of, 28 ; history, 
29 ; ruins, 30 ; desecration of 
tombs, 30 

Ightham House, 136 

Isabel, Queen, her reception at 

Chilham, 183 
Islip, Simon, 130, 134 



Itchen Abbas, 35, 37 

Itchen river, 28, 29, 39 ; valley, 

35 
Itchen Stoke, 37 

James I., King, 65 ; his visit to 

Loseley, 66 ; portrait, 66 
James, Capt. E. Renouard, " Notes 

on the Pilgrims' Way in West 

Surrey," loi note 
John, King, 38, 73, 178 ; legend 

of, 82 ; coronation, 206 
John, King of France, 188 
Johnson, Mrs. Hester, 56 
Jones, Sir Inigo, 121, 132 
Josse, St., shrine of, 29 
Julaber's grave, 183 

Katherine's, St., Chapel, 69, 71 ; 
Hill, fair at, 59 

Kemsing, 132 ; church and well, 
132 

Ken, Morris, 50 

Kent, Aldric, king of, 129 

Kent, John, brass to, 33 

Kent, Pilgrims' Way through, 
126 

Kingsworthy, 33 

Kitchin, Dean, on the fair at St. 
Giles' Hill, 32, 40 

Kits Coty House, 145 

Knight, Sir Richard, his monu- 
ment in Chawton Church, 46 

Knockholt down, height of, 138 

Laberius, Julius, 183 
Lambarde, W., 190 ; at Otford, 132 
Lanfranc, Archbishop, 153, 169, 

176 ; founds a lazar-house at 

Harbledown, 186 
Langton, Stephen, Archbishop, 16 
Leeds Castle, 154, 157 
Leith Hill, 107 



222 



INDEX 



Leland, J., 170, 184, 195, 201 

Len river, 161 

Lenham, 161 ; church, 162-165 ; 

tithe barns, 165 
Lennard, John, his monument, 

122 
Lennard, Richard, Lord Dacre, 

121 
Leveson, Sir John, quarterings of, 

143 
Leveson-Gower, Mr., 100, iig 
Leyborne, JuUana de, 161, 178 
Limnerslease, 69 
Limpsfield Lodge Farm, 117 
Littleton Cross, shrine of, 69 
Long Beech Woods, 175 
Loseley manor, 64 ; royal visitors, 
66 ; portraits, 67 ; royal war- 
rants, 67 ; letters, 68 
Louis VIL, King of France, 212 
Louis VIII., King of France, 72, 

105 

Lucy, Bishop Godfrey, 25 ; re- 
builds the town of Alresford, 
38 

Lyall, Sir Alfred, 180 ; his verses, 
180 ; death, 180 

Maidstone, 143 

Marden Park, 116 

Martha's, St., Hill, 80 ; chapel, 70, 

76 ; view from, 76 
Martyr's Hill, 76 
Martyrs worthy, 34 
Massilia, 4 
Medway river, 140, 142 ; valley, 

137. 138 
Mercia, Cenulph, King of, 169 
Mercia, Offa, King of, 129, 169 
Meredith, G., " Diana of the 

Crossways," 91 note 
Merstham, 108, 112 ; church, 113 
Miller, Sir Hubert, 52 



Milton, John, his line on the River 

Mole, 95 
Mole river, 95, 99 ; valley, 94 
Monks' Hatch, 69 
Monks' Walk, Winchester, 31, 33 
Monson, Lord, 109, iii 
Moor Park, 55 
More, Antonio, 119 
More, Sir Christopher, 64 
More, Sir William, 64 
Morley, Bishop, 53 
Morne Hill, 25 
Morton, Cardinal, his buildings 

at Charing, 170 
Moyle, Sir Thomas, Speaker of the 

House of Commons, 177 
Mytens, D., his portraits, 66 

Newark Hospital, 143 ; Priory, 

77 
Newcourt, Geoff ery de, 174 
Newcourt manor, 174 
Newlands Corner, 80, 82 
Nore, the, 138 
Nore Hill, 46 
Norfolk, Duke of, 53 
North Downs, 107, 118 
Nowell, Alexander, Dean of St. 

Paul's, letter from, 68 
Nuns' Walk, Winchester, 31 

Odo of Bayeux, 161 

Otford, 126 ; manor-house, 129 ; 

battles at, 129 ; the Bull Inn, 

131 ; legends, 131 
Oxted, 117 

Paddlesworth or Paulsford, 138 
Palmer, Mr., his treatise on 

" Three Surrey Churches," vi 
Palmers Wood, 19, 116 
Paternoster Lane, 19, 98 
St. Paul's Cathedral, 76 



INDEX 



22-^ 



Peckham, John, the Franciscan 
Archbishop, 170 

Penenden Heath, 150 ; memora- 
ble assembly held at, 150 

Pett Place, 174 

Pette-juxta-Charing, 174 

Pilgrims to Canterbury, routes 
taken by, 3-6, 20, 28 ; number 
of, 12, 16-18, 193, 198 ; traces 
of, 18, 58 ; characteristics, 60 

Pilgrims' Chapel, 98 

Pilgrims' Ferry, 19, 74 

Pilgrims' House, 138 

Pilgrims' Lodge, 19, 120 

Pilgrims' Place, 43 

Plantagenet, Richard, his death 
at Eastwell, 177 

Plantagenet's Well, 177 

Pray Meadows, 98 

Puttenham, 58 ; fair at, 59 ; 
Heath, 63 

Quarry Hangers, 114 
Quarry Hills, loi, 168 

Ranmore Common, 98 

Redhill, 96 

Reigate, 99, 103 ; chapels, 104 ; 

hill, 107 ; park, 106 
Richard Coeur de Lion, his return 

from the Holy Land, 171 ; at 

Harbledown, 188 ; Canterbury, 

206 
Richard HI., King, 177 
Ripley, 77 

Robbers' or Roamers Moor, 58 
Robertson, T. C, " Materials for 

the History of Archbishop 

Becket," 12 note 
Rochester, 3, 141 
Romney Marsh, 168 
Rood, the miraculous, or winking 

image, 148 



Ropley, 43 
Rotherfield Park, 43 
Rumbold, St., the image of, 147 
Rupibus, Peter de, 45 
Rutupine, Port, 4 

Salisbury, John of. Bishop of 

Chartres, 12 
Saltwood Castle, 9 
Sandwich Haven, 3, 4, 73 
Sandy Lane, 69 
Scott, Sir Walter, on the death of 

Jane Austen, 50 
Scale, 58 ; church, 59 
Selborne, 44 

Sellyng, Prior William, 154, 203 
Sesto, Cesare da, in 
Sevenoaks, 107 
Shalford, 74 ; fair at, 59, 74 ; 

park, 75 
Shere, 88 ; church, 87 
Shoelands, manor-house of, 58 
Shooters' Hill, 138 
Shrewsbury, Francis, Earl of, 37 
Shrewsbury, Lady, 36 
Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgo- 
mery, Earl of, 64 
Silchester, 28 

Silent Pool, 82 ; legend of, 82 
Sittingbourne, 3 
Snails, or Helix pomatia, 18 
Snodland, limestone works, 137, 

140 
Snowden-Ward, Mr. H., " The 

Canterbury Pilgrimages," vi 
Somers, Earl, 106 
Somerset, Lady Henry, 106 
South Downs, 76 
South Leith Hill, 76 
Southampton, 3, 20, 35 
Spenser, Edmund, his lines on the 

Mole, 95 
Stane Street, 97 



224 



INDEX 



Stanhope, Charles, Earl, 122 

Stanhope, General, 121 

Stanhope, Lady Frederica, effigy 
of, 124 

Stanhope, Lady Hester, 122 

Stanhope, James, Earl, monument 
to, 124 

Stanley, Dean, 5 ; extract from 
his account of the Canterbury 
pilgrimage, 6 ; on the character- 
istics of pilgrims, 60 

Stede, Sir William, monument to, 
161 

Stede Hill, 160 

Stour river, 162, 196 ; valley, 
182, 185 

Strangers' Hall, Winchester, 26 

Stratford, Archbishop, 196, 197 ; 
at Charing, 170 

Sudbury, Simon of, 193 

Surrenden Bering, 168 

Sussex Downs, 168 

Swift, J., 56 

Swithun, St., Bishop of Win- 
chester, 3 ; his shrine, 21 ; re- 
moval of his bones, 22 ; mira- 
cles wrought, 22 ; number of 
pilgrims to his shrine, 25 

Tatsfield church, 120 
Temple, Sir William, 56 
Thames river, 126 ; valley, 76, 138 
Thomas', St., Hill, 195 ; Hospital, 

196 ; Well, 117 
Thurnham, 152 
Tichborne, Isabella, 41 
Tichborne, Sir Roger, 41 
Tichborne Park, 41 ; legend of 

the Dole, 41-43 
Tillingbourne stream, 87 
Titsey Park, 117; discovery of 

Roman remains at, 100 ; Place, 

117 



Trottescliffe (Trosley), 138 
Tunbridge Wells, 107 
Tupper, Martin, 82 
Tyting's Farm, 77 

Vandyck, A., portrait by, 83 

Vane, Sir Harry, 136 

Vigo Inn, 138 

Vinci, Leonardo da, iii 

Walkelin, Bishop, his church, 25 
Walter, Archbishop Hubert, 196, 

206 
Wanborough, 59 ; church, 60 
War Camp or Cardinal's Cap, 114 
Warham, Archbishop, 149, 171, 

208 
Warrenne, William of, 104 
Watling Street, 141, 186 
Watts, George Frederic, 69 
Wauncey, Richard de, 69 
Waver ley Abbey, 56, 59 
Waynflete, Bishop William of, 

45. 78 
Wen, the, 5 
Wessex, 21 
Westerham, 121 
Westhumble Lane, 98 
Weston Wood, 80 
Westwell, 175 ; church, 175 ; 

manor, 176 
Wey, river, 51, 57, 72, 75 
White, Gilbert, his house at Sel- 

borne, 44 
White Hill Downs, 114 
Whiteway End, 57 
Wliitgift, Archbishop, 196 
Whorne Place, 142 
Wibert, Prior, 203 
Wickens, manor-house, 172 
Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of 

Winchester, place of his death, 

90 



INDEX 



225 



"William III., King, 56, 106 

William, King of Scotland, at 
Canterbury, 206 

Winchelsea, Archbishop, 130, 164; 
his enthronement, 194 ; death, 
194 ; statutes, 201 

Winchester, 3, 20 ; the shrine of 
St. Swithun. 21 ; number of 
churches and chapels, 22 ; buil- 
dings, 24 ; number of pilgrims, 
25 ; Nuns' Walk, 31 ; St. Giles' 
Hill, fair at, 31 

Winders' Hill, 116 

Windsor Castle, 76 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 149 

Wolvesey, castle of, 24, 29 



Wotton, 90 

Wotton, Sir Henry, 154 

Wren, Christopher, 36 

Wriothesley, Thomas, his treat- 
ment of the Abbey of Hyde, 29 

Wrotham, 132 ; church, 135 ; 
hill, 135 ; manor-house, 134 ; 
palace, 136 

Wulfstan, on the removal of St. 
Swithun's bones, 22 

Wykeham, William of, 24, 25, 45 

Wye, the, 184 

Yaldham, manor of, 136 
Yew trees, 6, 82, 84, 94, 99, 108, 
126 



15 



PRINTED BY 

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., 

LONDON AND AYLESBURY, 

ENGLAND. 



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